What is Civil Conspiracy?

You may have heard of criminal conspiracy. That’s when more than one person works together and takes individual acts to further, or participate in, a criminal act. The actors don’t have to be at the scene of the crime, or actually commit the crime, so long as they are taking some actual act in furtherance of the illegal activity.

But conspiracy isn’t just a criminal act. It can also lead to civil liability. Or, if you are the one wronged, the ability to sue others for their role in illegal, fraudulent or deceptive activity.

Civil Conspiracy

It’s called civil conspiracy, and it happens when there is an agreement amongst people to commit a fraudulent, wrongful or deceitful act, any of which would constitute a business tort. The parties must all know that they are participating in a planned wrongful act.

Parties can’t just agree or talk about a wrongful act; they must actually take what is known as an overt act, towards the planning, completion or success of the fraudulent scheme. The individual overt acts themselves don’t have to be crimes, or deceptive, or fraudulent, they just have to contribute to the overall conspiracy.

If you are the victim, you will also have to show injury or damages, which can include monetary loss, or loss to your or your business’ reputation. The damages must stem from or be caused by the conspiracy, and the actions of the co-conspirators that you are suing.

Examples of Civil Conspiracy

Although civil conspiracy isn’t a common cause of action, events that could give rise to civil conspiracy claims do happen.

Imagine someone who wants to steal a company’s trade secrets. They may work with IT people to steal computer data, or employees who know their way around the company’s security systems and can access trade secrets, or others who will try to hide the fact that the secrets have been stolen after the fact.

Anytime a business disseminates lies or deceitful information, there may be others, including employees, who help put up the fraudulent information on social media or other media outlets or who craft the advertisements that are designed to defraud others.

Collusion is a common scenario. Collusion is where what should be competitors work together to set (or fix) prices, thus eliminating competition in the marketplace. To collude, you of course need more than one, and often multiple actors (or businesses) working together. That means that they all may be co-conspirators.

Even situations where conspirators, working together, would have more influence, power, or coercion power, than any one actor individually would have, can be considered conspiracy.

Multiple actors often cannot be people from the same company or business. For example, a corporate Vice President and a Corporate Controller couldn’t be co-conspirators, even if they worked together, because they are from the same company.

Were you defrauded by, misled by, or damaged by another person or business? We can help your business get the compensation that it deserves. Call the West Palm Beach commercial litigation lawyers at Pike & Lustig today for help.

Sources:

casetext.com/case/charles-v-fl-foreclosure

casetext.com/case/churruca-v-miami-jai-alai-inc-4