Slaughter, J.
We accepted two certified questions from the Northern District of Indiana in August 2024. The district court’s certified questions were based on what the court said is a dispositive issue of Indiana law. Because we find a different issue of our state’s tort law dispositive, we restate the questions as one:
Does a property owner act without justification (or engage in wrongful or illegal conduct), for purposes of a claim for tortious interference with a contractual or business relationship, when the property owner bars a plaintiff from accessing the owner’s property?
We hold the answer is “no”. Absent a contractual or statutory duty, a property owner is always justified in excluding another from the owner’s premises.
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Prevailing tortious-interference law in Indiana is based on the second restatement of torts. To bring a claim for tortious interference with a contract in Indiana, a plaintiff must prove five elements, including that the defendant acted without “justification”:
(1) a valid and enforceable contract existed;
(2) defendant knew the contract existed;
(3) defendant intentionally induced a breach of the contract;
(4) defendant lacked justification for inducing the breach; and
(5) defendant’s unjustified inducement of the breach caused the plaintiff to suffer damages.
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Here, Diamond complains of being refused entry onto Dana Fort Wayne’s premises. Dana Fort Wayne admits denying Diamond entry onto its premises but says it was entitled to do so.
We hold that Dana Fort Wayne is correct under either version of the restatement. Indiana law protects a property owner’s right to exclude others from its premises. With exclusive possession of property comes “the right to exclude all others” from the property..
Indiana law mirrors fundamental property-law principles going back centuries…
These authorities show that a property owner has an absolute right to exclude others from its property. Of course, a property owner may permit anyone it wishes to enter its property. Such permission may be conferred by contract between owner and entrant. And civil-rights laws may limit a commercial enterprise’s right to exclude, at least insofar as the enterprise has opened its property to the public yet seeks to exclude some on the basis of a protected status. But absent a contractual or statutory duty, a landowner is entitled to deny entry onto its premises for any reason or no reason at all. Since exercising the right to exclude is not “unjustified”, “wrongful”, or illegal, this conduct cannot support a claim for tortious interference under Indiana law. This case does not require us to choose between the second and third restatements. So we leave for another day whether to adopt the third restatement, or some other test, to govern claims for tortious interference.
Finally, Justice Goff says in dissent that, by reframing the district court’s certified question, we run the “risk” of “issuing an improper advisory opinion”. Post, at 3. Yet he also says we have “effectively taken and decided” this case. Id. at 4. Both critiques cannot be right. Yes, we are deciding a dispositive issue of Indiana tort law affecting the parties before us. But that means our opinion is not “advisory”.
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For these reasons, the answer to our reframed certified question is “no”.
Rush, C.J., and Massa and Molter, JJ., concur.
Goff, J., dissents with separate opinion
Goff, J., dissenting.
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… Our court rules allow a federal court to “certify a question of Indiana law” to this Court “when it appears to the federal court that a proceeding presents an issue of state law that is determinative of the case and on which there is no clear controlling Indiana precedent.” Ind. Appellate Rule 64(A). The Northern District certified the following questions to this Court: (1) whether a plaintiff may “bring a claim for tortious interference with contractual and business relationships when the party induced to breach is a subsidiary of the same corporate parent as the defendant,” and (2) if so, “what is the scope of those claims, and what factors should the Court consider in determining liability?” Ante, at 4. The Court reframes the questions and holds that, “absent a contractual or statutory duty, a property owner is always justified in excluding another from the owner’s premises.” Id. at 5.
Our acceptance of this—or any—certified question is discretionary, requiring us to weigh the benefits (e.g., ensuring uniform interpretation and application of Indiana law) against “significant pitfalls” (e.g., lack of a fully developed factual record). Snyder v. King, 958 N.E.2d 764, 788 (Ind. 2011). Here, in my view, the pitfalls outweigh the benefits. Accordingly, I would decline to exercise our discretion. But because we have accepted the certified questions, I would hold that (1) a plaintiff may bring a claim for tortious interference with contractual and business relationships when a defendant has allegedly induced its own sister subsidiary to breach if the subsidiaries are not united in interest, and (2) the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 767 applies when determining whether a defendant is “justified” in interfering with a contract.
I. The procedural posture, existence of controlling precedent, and reframing of the questions make the certified questions inappropriate for our review.
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II. A defendant corporation can tortiously interfere with its sister subsidiary, and the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 767 applies.
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