In Alarcon v. Santoyo, the Fifth Court reversed a judgment against a corporate officer, individually, for tortious interference with a contract. Under Holloway v. Skinner, a plaintiff must show that “the defendant officer acted in a fashion so contrary to the entity’s best interests that his actions could only have been motivated by personal interests.” Mixed motives—where an officer’s actions benefit both themselves and the corporation—are insufficient to establish individual liability for tortious interference.

Here, “the fact that Alacorn paid himself a salary as CEO and management fees during this … time period is not sufficient evidence of a personal benefit” from his decisions to pay certain other corporate debts instead of the one involving the plaintiff.  As a result, the Court held that there was no basis for holding the officer individually liable for tortious interference with the contract. 05-24-00297-CV, Aug. 4, 2025.

The Fifth Court addressed a recurring issue in departing-employee litigation in Layla’s Day Spa, Inc. v. HD Salon Group, LLC, in which it reversed the trial court’s judgment on the plaintiff’s claims for tortious interference with contract and prospective business relations.

To establish tortious interference with an existing contract, there must be proof of a willful and intentional act of interference, and for interference with prospective business relations, the conduct must be independently tortious or unlawful. Here, the court found no evidence that the defendants “solicited or encouraged” the technicians to leave their employment, nor that they “knowingly induced” any breach of contract. In fact, the technicians themselves testified that they left for their own reasons, and the plaintiff failed to present any specific facts showing improper conduct by the defendants.

The Court also reminded: “A tortious interference claim cannot be premised merely on the hiring of an at-will employee.” No.  05-24-00065-CV, May 21, 2025

Fagin v. Inwood Nat’l Bank rejected a request to recognize “truth” as a defense to a tortious-interference claim, holding:

We agree with our sister courts’ reasoning. As with affirmative claims, recognizing an affirmative defense that the supreme court has expressly declined to adopt raises a “litany of questions regarding the contours and scope” of the defense that we are ill-suited to answer. We conclude that neither this court nor the trial court below can legitimately recognize, in the first instance, an affirmative defense of truth to a claim for tortious interference with an existing contract.

No. 05-21-00878-CV (footnotes omitted) (mem.op.).

The ongoing geyser of TCPA opinions continues with Dickens v. Webster, a tortious interference case arising from a dispute among attorneys about a contingent fee agreement. It offers three points of broad interest:

• The TCPA does not require that a statement be made to the public;
• For the “commercial speech” exemption to apply, the communications at issue must relate to the defendant’s services – not the plaintiff’s; and
• On page 15 of the opinion, a “road map” for establishing a prima facie case of tortious interference; here, the alleged substitution of one contract for another, accompanied by emails supporting the plaintiff’s version of events.

No. 05-17-00423-CV (Dec. 31, 2018) (mem. op)

Dickson, an attorney, alleged interference with his contingent fee contract that led to the abandonment of a promising appeal.  The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the defense, noting: “Dickson’s summary judgment response below that the appeal was a ‘slam dunk’ is conclusory because it does not provide the underlying facts to support it.”  Dickson v. American Electric Power, Inc., No. 05-14-00690-CV (revised Jan. 15, 2016) (mem. op.)

Mark Palla filed suit against a group of defendants for breach of contract and tortious interference arising out of the breach of a sales commission agreement. The jury returned a verdict for $278,718 on the contract claim against Bio-One, Inc., and exactly $100,000 for tortious interference against Aydemir Arapoglu and Transtrade LLC. Palla argued that the tortious interference damages should have been the same as the breach of contract award and that each of the defendants should be jointly and severally liable for the entire amount. The trial court disagreed, entering judgment against Bio-One for $178,718 and against all three of the defendants, jointly and severally, for an additional $100,000. Palla appealed, but the Court of Appeals affirmed. Although generally the measure of damages for tortious interference is the same as the measure of damages for the breach of the contract, a tortious interference defendant is only liable for damages that are proximately caused by the interference. Thus, the question on appeal was whether there was any evidence that the defendants’ interference had only caused a portion of Palla’s damages. But Palla had not brought forward any record of the trial proceedings, due to the belief that he was entitled to the full amount of contract damages as a matter of law. Since the Court of Appeals could not determine whether the evidence supported only a partial damage award for tortious interference, Palla could not demonstrate that the trial court had erred by refusing to disregard the jury’s finding.

Palla v. Bio-One, Inc., No. 05-12-01657-CV