In Applied Equipment Corporation v. Litton Saudi Arabia Ltd. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 503, the California Supreme Court held that a party to a contract cannot be liable for conspiring to interfere with its own contract. (7 Cal.4th at p. 521.) The court reasoned that "by its nature, tort liability arising from conspiracy presupposes that the coconspirator is legally capable of committing the tort, i.e., that he or she owes a duty to plaintiff recognized by law and is potentially subject to liability for breach of that duty." (Id. at p. 511.) A party to a contract does not owe a tort duty to refrain from interference with its performance and, therefore, that party "cannot be bootstrapped into tort liability by the pejorative plea of conspiracy." (Id. at p. 514.) That case stands for the proposition that an alleged coconspirator must be legally capable of committing the tort charged and that he or she must owe a duty to the plaintiff which potentially subjects him or her to liability for breaching that duty. (Applied Equipment, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 511.) The California Supreme Court held there is no tort action for interference against a party to the contract. The court wrote: "Consistent with its underlying policy of protecting the expectations of contracting parties against frustration by outsiders who have no legitimate social or economic interest in the contractual relationship, the tort cause of action for interference with contract does not lie against a party to the contract." ( Id. at p. 514.) The court rejected the notion that a party to a contract could tortiously conspire with another to breach the contract. Explaining the difference between contract and tort in greater depth, the court stated: "Applied's conspiracy theory is fundamentally irreconcilable with the law of conspiracy and the tort of interference ... . One contracting party owes no general tort duty to another not to interfere with performance of the contract; its duty is simply to perform the contract according to its terms. The tort duty not to interfere with the contract falls only on strangers--interlopers who have no legitimate interest in the scope or course of the contract's performance." (Ibid.) Applied Equipment involved an interference with contract, a sibling of the tort of interference with a prospective economic advantage.