12.6.2 Exemplar Fact Patterns.

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

12.6.2 Exemplar Fact Patterns. Courts have addressed claims for intentional interference with employment contracts under a variety of factual circumstances. Nonfeasance is generally held not to be actionable. For example, in Caudle v. Bristow Optical Co., Inc.,¹¹⁰ the Ninth Circuit applied Arizona law and held that the evidence was insufficient to support a claim, where the alleged nonfeasance involved the supervisor ignoring the employee’s complaints and “shunning” her.¹¹¹

Breach of a contract caused by an act that a person has a legal right or obligation to do, will not result in liability for intentional interference.¹¹² Similarly, absent malice in fact or improper interference, workers can report alleged work place sexual harassment without fear of liability.¹¹³

Conduct relating to the breach of a non-compete agreement may state a claim for tortious interference. In Mattison v. Johnston,¹¹⁴ the court held that a former employer’s complaint alleging that an employee’s new employer induced the employee to violate a restrictive covenant and conspired to injure the former employer’s business stated a claim for intentional interference with contract. The court rejected the defendants’ reliance on the at-will nature of employment and cited with approval Restatement (Second) of Torts § 768, comment i (1977), which provides in part:

An employment contract, however, may be only partially terminable at will. Thus it may leave the employment at the employee’s option but provide that he is under a continuing obligation not to engage in competition with his former employer. Under these circumstances a defendant engaged in the same business might induce the employee to quit his job, but he would not be justified in engaging the employee to work for him in an activity that would mean violation of the contract not to compete.

The court pointed out that plaintiff was claiming that the defendants induced the employee to break the restrictive covenant, not the at-will employment relationship.¹¹⁵

In Lundy v. Airtouch Communications, Inc.,¹¹⁶ the court addressed a tortious interference claim in the context of a job reference for prospective employers. The court held that a release signed by the former employee which waived all claims against the employer “arising out of, relating to, or in connection” with his employment was applicable to bar a claim that the employer interfered with his business expectancy by preventing its employees from providing letters of...