Competition is legal. Talking your competitor's customer into breaching a signed contract is not.
The line between the two decides these cases, and it is narrower than most business owners expect in either direction.
The Law Offices of Aaron Resnick, P.A. has handled Florida business relationship and unfair competition disputes since 1998.
Two different claims
Tortious interference with a contract. There is an existing agreement, someone outside it induced a party to break it, and you were damaged. This is the stronger version because the contract itself establishes what was disrupted.
Tortious interference with a business relationship. There is no signed contract, but there was an actual, identifiable relationship with an understanding that it would continue. This is harder. Florida requires an existing relationship with identifiable customers, not a general hope of future business.
> The claim usually fails on identification. "They took our customers" is not a case. "They contacted these six named accounts, each under contract through December, using our pricing sheet" is.
What has to be proven
- A contract or an identifiable business relationship existed
- The defendant knew about it
- The defendant intentionally and improperly interfered
- The interference caused a breach or a termination
- You suffered damages as a result
Element three carries the weight. Florida protects legitimate competition, so the interference must be improper, not merely effective.
What courts treat as improper
- Using confidential information or a customer list taken from you
- Inducing a breach of a contract the defendant knew existed
- Misrepresentations about you or your product made to your customer
- Threats or economic coercion aimed at your customer
- A former insider exploiting relationships developed on your payroll
What is usually not improper: offering a better price, offering better terms, advertising to the same market, or hiring an employee who is not under an enforceable restrictive covenant. Losing business to a competitor who simply competed better is not a claim.
The privilege problem
A party with its own legitimate interest in the relationship may be privileged to interfere. A parent company, a lender, or someone with a financial stake can sometimes act in ways that would be actionable coming from a stranger. That privilege is not unlimited, and it generally falls away where the conduct is malicious or uses improper means.
Expect this defense in nearly every case involving anyone who was not a pure outsider.
When it is a former employee
This is the most common version, and it usually is not only a tortious interference case.
Look at all of it together: any non-compete or non-solicitation agreement, any confidentiality obligation, whether they took files or data on the way out, and whether they began contacting accounts before they resigned. An employee who solicited your customers while still employed by you was also breaching a duty of loyalty.
Speed matters here more than in most business disputes. Client relationships that transfer are often gone permanently, which is exactly the kind of harm that supports emergency injunctive relief.
Move quickly and document what left
- Identify the specific accounts affected, by name
- Pull the contracts covering those accounts and their terms
- Preserve access logs, downloads, and device activity from before the departure
- Preserve communications where the customer explains why they left
- Calculate the value of each lost relationship
- Assess injunctive relief before the client list finishes moving
Common questions
What if a competitor convinced my client to break our contract? That is the core fact pattern. The contract, the competitor's knowledge of it, and the means used are what determine the outcome.
How fast can I stop a former employee who took my clients? Days, in the right case, through emergency injunctive relief. The strength of any written agreement they signed matters enormously.
Can I sue for interference with a business relationship if there is no contract? Yes, but you must identify actual customers and an existing relationship. A prospective market is not enough.
What if a competitor is spreading lies about my business? That may support tortious interference along with a separate defamation or trade libel claim, which carries its own procedural requirements.
The evidence disappears first
Device logs get overwritten. Email accounts get closed. Customers stop returning calls once they have moved on. The record supporting these claims degrades quickly, and the strongest cases are the ones where preservation started in the first week.
Call the Law Offices of Aaron Resnick, P.A. to discuss a tortious interference claim.
