Tortious Interference

Tortious Interference occurs when someone harms you by unfairly interfering with either your contract with someone else, or a potential economic relationship or benefit from someone else. These claims are, respectively, known as tortious interference with contract and tortious interference with prospective economic benefit.

Our New Jersey employment lawyers handle tortious interference claims that impact someone's current employment or business relationship, or their potential employment relationship or business opportunity.

To establish a tortious interference claim, you need to prove:

1. You were in a contractual relations, or you were in pursuit of doing business;
2. Someone interfered with your contract or the business you were pursuing;
3. The interference was done with malice. In this context, malice means the action was taken intentionally and without justification or excuse; and
4. The interference caused your economic damage.

You can assert a tortious interference claim only against a third party.  In other words, you cannot bring this claim against the other party to your own contract. Instead, you would have to bring another claim, such as breach of contract, against the other party to your own contract.

There are many ways in which someone can commit tortious interference that would harm your current employment or business relationship.  For example, a customer, client, jilted ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, or another third party could lie, exaggerate, or otherwise malign you in a way that could cause your employer to fire you, discipline you or pass you up for a promotion, or cause a customer not to want to do business with you.

Similarly, tortious interference can arise in the context of potential future employment. For instance, a former employer can do so by giving you a bad job reference that causes you to lose your job or business opportunity.  A bad job reference could be legally actionable if there was no justification for the negative statements about you.

Under New Jersey employment law, the statute of limitations for a tortious interference claim is six years. In other words, you must bring this claim within six years after the wrongful conduct occurred.

The New Jersey employment lawyers at Rabner Baumgart Ben-Asher & Nirenberg, P.C. have experience handling claims of both tortious interference with contract and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage that impacted a work or business relationship.

If you believe you have been the victim of this tort, or would like us to help you void a situation from getting to that point, then please feel free to contact us to schedule an initial consultation with one of our attorneys. Our telephone number is (201) 777-2250. We offer consultations in person, over the telephone and by Zoom.

Often, individuals who have tortious interference claims may have other legal claims, such as defamation or false light.  Information about those claims is available on our defamation and false light page.