Bruton v. Smith

The gravamen of what the appealing defendant is alleged to have done was to procure the individual defendants to sell the land and timber involved to it, at a price greatly in excess of that named in said receipt or contract of conveyance, and thereby prevent them from carrying out the contract with the plaintiff, to the damage of the plaintiff. If this was unlawful and wrongful, then the plaintiff made out a cause of action; but if it was not unlawful nor wrongful, however malicious it may have been the plaintiff failed to make out a cause of action. Elvington v. Shingle Co., 191 N. C., 515,…