Cite as: 529 U. S. 494 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Consistent with this principle, it was sometimes said that a conspiracy claim was not an independent cause of action, but was only the mechanism for subjecting co-conspirators to liability when one of their member committed a tortious act. Royster v. Baker, 365 S. W. 2d 496, 499, 500 (Mo. 1963) ("[A]n alleged conspiracy by or agreement between the defendants is not of itself actionable. Some wrongful act to the plaintiff's damage must have been done by one or more of the defendants, and the fact of a conspiracy merely bears on the liability of the various defendants as joint tortfeasors"). See Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F. 2d 472, 479 (CADC 1983) ("Since liability for civil conspiracy depends on performance of some underlying tortious act, the conspiracy is not independently actionable; rather, it is a means for establishing vicarious liability for the underlying tort").7
7 Justice Stevens quotes from some of the cases we have cited to suggest that the common law allowed recovery from harm caused by any overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. See post, at 510-511, n. 5 (dissenting opinion). However, his quotations omit pertinent language. When read in context, it is clear that these passages refer to harm, not from any overt act, but only from overt acts that are themselves tortious. Compare ibid. with Adler v. Fenton, 24 How. 407, 410 (1861) ("[I]t must be shown that the defendants have done some wrong, that is, have violated some right of theirs . . . . [I]n these cases the act must be tortious"); Royster v. Baker, 365 S. W. 2d 496, 499 (Mo. 1963) ("Strictly speaking, there has been no distinct form of writ or action of conspiracy; but the action sounds in tort, and is of the nature of an action on the case upon the wrong done under the conspiracy alleged. The gist of the action is not the conspiracy, but the wrong done by acts in furtherance of the conspiracy" (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); Lesperance v. North American Aviation, Inc., 217 Cal. App. 2d 336, 345, 31 Cal. Rptr. 873, 878 (1963) (" 'It is well settled that a conspiracy cannot be made the subject of a civil action unless something is done which without the conspiracy would give a right of action' "); Earp v. Detroit, 16 Mich. App. 271, 275, 167 N. W. 2d 841, 845 (1969) ("There is no civil action for conspiracy alone. It must be coupled with the commission of acts which damaged the plaintiff. Recovery may be had from parties on the theory of concerted action as long as the elements of the separate and actionable tort are properly proved" (citation omitted)); Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F. 2d
503
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007