27.3 Statute of Limitations . A tortious interference with contract or business expectancy12 claim has a 2-year statute of limitations13 which accrues “at the time all elements, including damages, can be alleged in a proper complaint.”14 Therefore, the statute of limitations does not accrue when the interference occurs but when damages or harm results.15 Put differently, the statute of limitations begins to run at the time injury is sustained and not the date of defendant’s alleged wrongful conduct.16
The damage or harm occurs when the contract is breached17 and begins to run when plaintiff “kn[ows], or reasonably should kn[o]w, of the breach of contract.”18 Inducing another to break a contract does not become a legal wrong upon which an action may be based until damage is suffered as a result, and that occurs only when the breach happens.19
Policy considerations discourage a notice triggered statute because differently situated plaintiffs have unequal amounts of time to file a complaint.20 For instance, if plaintiff one can only allege three elements of the tort, it would be unfair to accrue the statute of limitations at the same time as plaintiff two who can properly allege all five elements.21
Moreover, the court in Blazer Foods , Inc .,22 declined to extend the “continuing wrong”23 doctrine to a tortious interference claim reserving it only to trespass, nuisance, and civil rights cases. Under the continuing wrong doctrine, when a defendant’s wrongful acts are of a continuing nature, the period of limitation will not run until the wrong is abated. Therefore, a separate cause of action can accrue each day the defendant’s tortious conduct continues.24 The continuing wrong doctrine was rejected to prevent a plaintiff from allowing damages to accumulate with each passing day.
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