Day on Torts
In a case about the demise of a family business, the Court of Appeals reversed trial court rulings for the plaintiff on tort claims of intentional interference with business relationships and conversion.
In Grubb v. Grubb, No. E2023-01358-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 8, 2025), the plaintiff and the defendant were brothers who ran several companies as a family business before their relationship deteriorated. The plaintiff eventually sued the defendant for breach of contract, intentional interference with business relationships, conversion, and other claims. The trial court credited the plaintiff’s testimony that the brothers had an oral agreement. It awarded the plaintiff approximately $2.25 million in damages plus attorneys’ fees and ordered the redistribution of certain companies. On appeal, the verdict for the plaintiff was reversed.
After reversing the finding that the brothers had an express oral agreement, the Court also reversed the finding for the plaintiff on both tort claims. Noting the elements of an intentional interference with business relationships claim, the Court stated that the trial court found that the plaintiff “proved [the defendant’s] improper motive and improper means as [the defendant] maliciously harmed [the plaintiff] and misused his position of control over the LLCs to effectuate the interference.” But while the trial court focused on ways the defendant pushed the plaintiff out of the business, such as asking employees not to talk to him and keeping him from getting equal pay, the Court of Appeals pointed out the plaintiff continued to have “opportunities to do business with the jointly owned companies.”
The Court wrote that the trial court “made multiple findings regarding [the defendant’s] malicious behavior toward [the plaintiff],” but that the “increased enmity between the brothers went both ways.” The Court ultimately reversed the finding for plaintiff on this tort claim, writing that the brothers’ “inability to cooperate is not tantamount to [the defendant] intentionally interfering in [the plaintiff’s] business relationships.”
The Court of Appeals also overturned the ruling that the defendant was liable for conversion. The Court wrote that the plaintiff had “failed to prove that the money at issue belonged to him rather than their business entities.” The defendant, therefore, could not be liable for the conversion of funds that did not belong to the plaintiff.
The plaintiff’s verdict on the tort claims and the contract claim was accordingly reversed.
This opinion was released two months after oral arguments in this case.