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. Mike McDevitt and Lawsuit tend to be the major cause of all this misunderstanding. McDevitt persuaded Tessemae’s to hire him and the Tandem Defendants with the promise that he would use Tandem’s legal and business services to help Tessemae’s grow. The main motive here was to serve as the point of contact between the two involved parties. Some of the allegations raised in Mike McDevitt and Tessemae’s case includes the following.
RICO. Michael McDevitt and Racketeering is a claim being raised in this case by the defendant. This allegation requires a plaintiff to plead facts showing conduct, of an enterprise, through a pattern and of racketeering activity. As a result of this activity the plaintiff suffered multiple injuries.
Second one is common-law fraud. There is an allegation by the plaintiff that McDevitt is liable for common-law fraud. However the plaintiff need to plead claims of fraud with particularity. This means that the particularity is the time, place, contents of false representations and identity of the person making the misrepresentation and what obtained thereby. The court finds that Tessemae’s has pleaded its claim of common-law fraud with sufficient particularity to survive defendant’s motion. Michael McDevitt and Defendent are identified as ones who made the misrepresentations via phone which harmed the plaintiff.
Another one is civil conspiracy. Tessemae’s alleges a count of civil conspiracy against defendants McDevitt. Under Maryland law civil conspiracy requires a confederation of two or more persons by agreements or understanding and some unlawful or tortious act. However this cannot stand on its own meaning that it must be based on some underlying tortious action by the defendants. Defendants in this case argues that Tessemae’s has not pled facts that support its assertions of a civil conspiracy among McDevitt, has not pled any facts supporting existence of a confederation among the defendant and has not alleged the commission of any underlying tortious act. This therefore leads to a conclusion that the complaints contains a naked allegation.
Last 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. However the plaintiff failed in this claim.