n2 I recognize that this court has recently held that a party cannot be liable in tort for interfering with its own contract. (Applied Equipment Corp., supra, 7 Cal. 4th 503 [but see p. 521, dis. opn. of Mosk, J.].) Even if it is conceded, however, that Applied Equipment Corp. is generally correct that a party who "interferes" with its own contract does no more than breach the contract, and should not be held liable in tort, the rule appears to me not to apply to the exceptional case when the promisor not only acts in concert with a third party, but does so in an attempt to deceive the promisee as to the promisor's liability. In these cases, the material wrongdoing is not the conspiracy per se, but the deceitful conduct and the fraudulent design. Although it may be argued that "the mere entry of a stranger onto the scene does not render the contracting party's breach more socially or morally reprehensible" (id. at p. 517), the use of the third party for a scheme of deception to conceal the promisor's liability does in fact introduce an additional element of moral culpability.  Moreover, in economic terms, if the efficiency promoted by contract law turns on the promisee being able to receive contract damages for a breach, then one who engages in such a conspiracy undermines this efficiency by not only denying liability, but actively conspiring to conceal it.