Lindberg v. Dow Jones & Co., Inc.

Background

Greg E. Lindberg sued Dow Jones & Company, Inc., the owner of The Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit arose from two articles concerning Lindberg’s business and personal relationships. Lindberg alleged claims for defamation, tortious interference with contracts, and aiding and abetting breaches of fiduciary duty.

The court had previously dismissed the original complaint and allowed Lindberg to amend only his tortious-interference claim. Dow Jones then moved to dismiss the first amended complaint. The motion challenged only the amended tortious-interference claim.

Legal standard and issue

Under New York law, tortious interference with contract requires, among other things, a valid contract, the defendant’s knowledge of it, intentional procurement of a breach without justification, an actual breach, and resulting damages. The court focused on whether Lindberg alleged enough facts to show damages.

Lindberg’s amended complaint alleged generally that he had been injured and sought compensatory and punitive damages, as well as disgorgement of profits connected to the October 2019 article. In his memorandum, however, Lindberg clarified that the claim sought the financial value of benefits lost because of an alleged breach of confidentiality agreements, not reputational damages from publication of the article.

Ruling

The court held that the amended complaint did not provide a factual basis for inferring that Lindberg suffered non-reputational financial loss as a direct result of an alleged breach of the confidentiality agreements. Because the complaint did not plausibly allege the damages element, it failed to state a claim for relief. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan granted the motion to dismiss the amended tortious-interference claim and did not address Dow Jones’s other stated ground for dismissal.