Damage as an Essential Element in the Economic Torts

Abstract It is generally assumed that the economic torts are a family of actions concerned to protect purely financial interests bound up with a claimant’s trade, business or livelihood. This chapter seeks to show that such an assumption is by no means true even though it fair to say that they are most commonly used in connection with economic setbacks inflicted on a claimant by a defendant. It reveals that the decided cases, contrary to the common misconception, actually supply hard evidence of these torts being successfully invoked in connection with a wide-range of non-financial interests (such as our interests in bodily integrity, reputation, psychic integrity and decision-making autonomy). The chapter also explains how, although damage must always be shown before a successful claim can be made in any of these torts, it is not appropriate to treat the damage requirement as an element of the tort of deceit in cases of two-party intimidation. It is argued that, in the case of those torts, the damage requirement is better seen as a condition of actionability because although the courts will recognise the commission of a wrong where the claimant suffers no tangible loss, they will stop short of allowing the claimant to sue unless actual damage can be shown.