Dubray Land Services, Inc. v. Mesa Communications Group, LLC

MEMORANDUM **

Defendant Mesa Communications Group appeals the jury’s verdict for Plaintiff Du-Bray Land Services on DuBray’s claim of tortious interference with a contract. Mesa also requests attorney fees for its successful defense of DuBray’s alternate breach of contract claim. DuBray cross-appeals the jury’s decision not to award it punitive damages against Mesa. We affirm on both the appeal and the cross-appeal.

1. On de novo review of the district court’s order denying judgment as a matter of law, Bell v. Clackamas County, 341 F.3d 858, 865 (9th Cir.2003), we conclude that the court did not err. Sufficient evidence supports the jury verdict for Du-Bray on the claim of tortious interference with a contract.

For example, DuBray presented evidence that Mesa knew that Pacific Northwest Infrastructure, Inc. (“PNI”), had hired DuBray to develop all of its job sites, and approved of the action, but then took approximately 80% of the sites away from PNI for development by another site acquisition firm. Mesa justified its actions by claiming that DuBray was working too slowly, but evidence showed that DuBray was not meant to begin working until after Mesa made the accusations of…