§ III. On Those who Impede Another from Obtaining a Good

He who impedes another from obtaining a good is bound to restitution, as follows:

I. If the other has a strict right to the good from which he is impeded, the one impeding is bound to restitution; nor does it matter whether he impedes the other by a means just in itself or unjust. Hence, for example, you are bound to restore to Paul if you persuade Peter, Paul's debtor, not to pay the debts to Paul (St. Alphonsus, III, 582).

II. If the other lacks a strict right to the good from which he is impeded, a distinction must be made:

1. If someone impedes another by a means not unjust - for example by persuading someone not to buy from Paul - he does not act unjustly; and this holds even if from hatred he impedes another from obtaining the good (St. Alphonsus, III, 584, 585).

2. If someone uses an unjust means, for example fear, force, calumny, fraud, lying,¹ a subdistinction must be made:

a) If the unjust means is unjust with respect to him who is impeded from obtaining the good, there is injustice and the obligation of restitution; as if someone, by calumniating a poor man, impedes him from obtaining alms. Make exception, however, if either the one about to confer the good cannot confer it without sin, or the one about to receive the good pursues it illegitimately or is going to abuse it; as if, by calumniating a poor man, you turn someone away either from making a prodigal donation to the poor man, or from giving alms which the poor man would abuse. In these circumstances injustice is absent in relation to the good impeded, although the act can be unjust on another head, for instance because of injured reputation. The reason is that per se someone can be impeded from obtaining a good which cannot be granted to him without sin, or which he himself pursues illegitimately, or which he is going to abuse; this being posited, the impeditive act is not unjust by reason of the good impeded through the act; but it can be unjust by reason of itself, for example by reason of the injury to reputation which it involves (St. Alphonsus, III, 587).

In a case in which someone uses an unjust means with respect to him who is impeded from obtaining the good, restitution must be made according to the certainty or probability by which the other is judged otherwise to have been going to obtain such a good.

b) If the means is directly unjust only with respect to him who was about to confer the good - as if someone by fear impedes another from conferring alms, for example, on Peter - it is disputed whether there is an obligation of restoring to Peter. Now it seems this must be denied, because under no head is it clear that injustice is committed with respect to Peter, neither by reason of the act, which is unjust only with respect to the benefactor, nor by reason of the good from whose attainment Peter is impeded, because Peter does not have a strict right to that good (St. Alphonsus, III, 632).

Objection. Everyone has a right that another not be unjustly impeded from giving a good to him.

Response. What is asserted is not evident, and therefore must be proved.

Nevertheless St. Alphonsus and others think that an obligation of restitution arises if someone impedes another from obtaining a good with precisely this intention, that the other not obtain the good, because the said intention seems to them to bring it about that the act assumes the character of a violent means with respect to him who is impeded from obtaining the good, and thus becomes unjust also with respect to him (III, 633).

¹ Fraud and lying are unjust insofar as, equally with fear, they deprive another of liberty of acting.