Tessemae’s, plaintiff in this case, is a Maryland limited liability company that sells marinades, salad dressings, meal kits and related items throughout the United States thereby affecting interstate commerce. Michael McDevitt Baltimore city county is the defendant and is a non-lawyer owner and CEO of defendants Tandem legal group. It all began when Greg Vetter first met McDevitt through an employee of Howard Bank. There is lack of fulfillment of the promise McDevitt gave in this case. It meant that McDevitt would serve as point of contact of all business dealings between Tessemae’s and Tandem defendants. Some of the allegations raised in Mike McDevitt and Tessemae’s case includes the following.
The first one tend to be RICO. Tessemae’s arts a claim under the Racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act against McDevitt and Tandem Group. The act of Michael McDevitt and Racketeering must be clearly shown by the plaintiff since it’s a requirement. There are multiple injuries that were suffered by the plaintiff.
Common-law fraud. There is an allegation by the plaintiff that McDevitt is liable for common-law fraud. It’s s requirement under Rule 9(b) for the plaintiffs to plead claims of fraud with particularity. Such includes time, place, contents of false representations and much more. The court finds that Tessemae’s has pleaded its claim of common-law fraud with sufficient particularity to survive defendant’s motion. In this case Tessemae’s identifies McDevitt as the person who made the misrepresentations via phone and the plaintiff was harmed since the defendant profited from such misrepresentations.
Another one is civil conspiracy. There is a count of civil conspiracy between Mike McDevitt and Tessemae. It’s required under Maryland law that civil conspiracy contain a confederation of two or more persons by agreements or understanding, some unlawful or tortious act done in furtherance of the conspiracy and the actual damage. The fact that this can’t stand on its own requires it being based on some underlying tortious action by the defendants. The case is different here as the plaintiff has not pled facts that support its assertions. The court therefore rules that the plaintiff has an amended complaint with a naked allegations.
The last one is tortious interference. Tessemae’s alleges a count of tortious interference with business relations against McDevitt, Intlekofer and Chehansky. This claim is however required under Maryland law to show that the defendant committed intentional and willful acts, calculated to cause damage to the plaintiff in its lawful business, there is actual damage and it was done with the unlawful purpose of causing such damage. This means that the plaintiff must allege interference through improper means which the law limits to violence, intimidation or defamation. It should also proof that there were interference with existing business relationships. In this case, Tessemae’s has failed to allege the existence of any prospective relationships that would have occurred in the absence of interference by the defendant.