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Health Call of Detroit v. Atrium Home & Health Care Services9/8/2005
dependent Contractor Agreement not to compete with Health Call for two years does not bear in any fashion on the issue of Health Call's loss of future profits from the Williams Care Contract. As in Environair, there is no cognizable tortious interference cause of action independent of the contract that is the source of all possible future revenues to the plaintiff-here, the Williams Care Contract.
(2) The Health Call Panel's Methodology
The Health Call panel, without subscribing to Health Call's calculation of $700,000 in lost future profits, followed something of the same logic. The Health Call panel stated that " f the finder of fact was to conclude that Williams discontinued the [Williams Care Contract] with [Health Call] and entered into the contract with Atrium only because she wanted the care provided by the [nurse defendants] to continue unabated, such a finding would support the conclusion that the termination of the [Williams Care Contract] had no relation to the fact that the [Williams Care Contract] was at will."
Here, in my view at least, the Health Call panel erroneously relied on the wrong factor: the motivation of Ms. Williams. Let us assume that the sole motivation of Ms. Williams in terminating the Williams Care Contract was to assure that the care the nurse defendants provided to Cierra Harris would continue unabated. Ms. Williams's reasons for terminating the Williams Care Contract were and are entirely irrelevant to the termination of that contract. The Williams Care Contract was at-will and could be terminated at any time for any reason or no reason at all.Thus, any conclusion by a jury as to Ms. Williams's motivation would have no bearing whatever on the issue of Health Call's future lost profits as a result of the termination of the Williams Care Contract.
If this is so, then the time during which the nurse defendants continued to provide nursing services to Cierra Harris cannot operate as a basis for measuring damages for much the same reason. Let us assume that but for the allegedly tortious interference by Atrium and Damita Borner with the Williams Care Contract, Ms. Williams would have continued to use Health Call pursuant to that contract. Because that contract was at-will, there can be no reasonable basis on which a jury could determine how long that contractual relationship would continue. Ms. Williams could have terminated the Williams Care Contract the next day, the next month, or the next year, again for any reason or for no reason at all.
Moreover, I note that in her deposition, Ms. Williams stated that she was dissatisfied with the care from Health Call and that she was unhappy with one of the owners of Health Call because of his negative comments about her. It is certainly possible to conclude that this dissatisfaction might have led Ms. Williams to terminate the Williams Care Contract even had there been no allegedly tortious interference with that contract by Atrium and Damita Borner. But this conclusion would be entirely speculative. Similarly, it is entirely speculative-and entirely open-ended-to conclude that the time during which the nurse defendants continued to provide nursing services to Cierra Harris might serve as a basis for measuring damages. Under this formulation, Health Call's lost future profits could continue indefinitely and they would be, literally, without measure.
(3) The Majority's Methodology
The majority initially skirts the question of how a jury might reasonably go about measuring Health Call's lost future profits. Rather, the majority's opinion simply announces its conclusion that the "facts are sufficient to survive summary disposition" and that, therefore, "more
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