California Court of Appeal

In an action for intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage arising out of defendant-beer importer's disapproval of the sale of its distributorship from a third party local distributor to plaintiff, a petition for writ of mandate challenging the denial of defendant-beer importer's motion for summary judgment is granted, where plaintiff cannot establish a cause of action for interference with prospective economic advantage, because: 1) Business and Professions Code section 25000.9 does not render the unreasonable denial of approval of a sale of a beer distributorship unlawful as long as they adequately compensate the selling distributors; 2) Business and Professions Code section 23300 cannot be read to prevent what Business and Professions Code section 25000.9 permits, and it therefore provides no basis for finding the denial of approval to be independently wrongful; and 3) plaintiff's argument regarding fraudulent concealment is insufficient.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/19/2014
• Published 02/19/2014

Judges

• CROSKEY

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel