ContractsProf Blog

What you should do if you want your Super Bowl party to be able to last until 4 a.m. (hint: not this)

A recent case out of New York, PJAM Prods., LLC v. M Light, LLC, 652409/2018, stems from a Super Bowl party. PJAM licensed M Light's venue to hold a party coinciding with Super Bowl weekend. There were discussions about the party being allowed to go on until 4 a.m., even though local law required the party to shut down by 2 a.m. PJAM claimed that M Light talked about being able to get permission from the city to keep the venue open until 4 a.m.  

No such permission was ever received, however, and PJAM sued for breach of contract. The problem was there was nothing in the contract requiring M Light to get such permission. The contract required M Light to have the proper government permits for the party, but did not specify that those permits should allow the party to extend until 4 a.m., and PJAM acknowledged that the law in the city was to close by 2 a.m., so that's what the proper government permits would have said, too. There was nothing in the Agreement about M Light lobbying the city to keep the venue open until 4 a.m. 

PJAM's fraudulent inducement claim also failed, because there was no allegation that M Light was lying about its intention to lobby the city when it said that it was going to. As for allegations the M Light led PJAM to believe its connections with the city were such that the lobbying would be successful, the court called those "mere puffery." The court said it was not justifiable for PJAM to rely on M Light's statements to believe that the 4 a.m. permission would definitely be obtained; rather, PJAM was taking a risk, and there was no indication that things would have turned out differently if M Light had lobbied harder or had better city connections. 

Basically, if PJAM wanted M Light to bear the risk of the 4 a.m. permission not coming through, it should have been put in the contract, and it wasn't. The contract was integrated, with a merger clause, so the court did not allow parol evidence of this as an additional term. 

The moral of the story is: If you're signing a written contract, don't rely on oral representations different from the contract. 

Lawyers: Beware your obligations when you sign a contract

A recent case out of California, Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter, S251392, concerns a settlement agreement imposing confidentiality obligations. The parties signed the settlement agreement. Their lawyers also signed the settlement agreement, under the preprinted notation "APPROVED AS TO FORM AND CONTENT." One of the lawyers then made public statements about the settlement and was sued for breach of contract. The lawyer argued that they were not personally bound by the confidentiality obligations and their signature meant only that they had approved that their client be bound. 

The trial court disagreed with the lawyer's argument. The court of appeals reversed, finding that the attorneys were not personally bound based on the presence of the notation. This California Supreme Court ruling reversed again, concluding that the notation did not preclude a finding that the attorneys were personally bound. The agreement itself included counsel in its confidentiality provisions, and a signature on a contract usually indicates consent to be bound by that contract. 

While it is true that the included notation is generally understood to mean that the attorney has read the document and recommends that their client should sign it, that does not mean that it also inevitably means that the attorney is not bound by the agreement. In this case, where the agreement expressly referenced the confidentiality obligations of counsel, a conclusion that counsel intended to be bound by their signature, even with the notation, was plausible. 

(h/t to Eric Chiappinelli of Texas Tech for passing this case along!)

Ja Rule mostly dismissed from Fyre Festival case, with the possibility of one pesky tweet coming back to haunt him

If you're not familiar with the debacle of Fyre Festival, you can watch two documentaries about it, or catch up on the Wikipedia page. The tl;dr version is: It was billed as a luxury music festival that would blow Coachella out of the water, and was canceled on the day it was to start, leaving attendees, who had paid thousands of dollars to attend, stranded with FEMA tents for accommodation. The festival had some big names associated with it, co-founded by Ja Rule and promoted on social media by people like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. Ja Rule was sued, along with Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre Media, who has already pleaded guilty to fraud in connection with the festival and has been sentenced to prison. 

Now, there's a recent ruling out of the Southern District of New York in In re Fyre Festival Litigation, 17-cv-3296 (PKC) (see links at end of blog post), that might succeed in dismissing Ja Rule from the case. The plaintiffs have been granted a very limited leave to amend with respect to one specific tweet, so Ja Rule might stay in the case on the basis of that tweet. 

The case has contract claims against Fyre Media, but this opinion focuses on individuals, Ja Rule and Grant Margolin, former Chief Marketing Officer for Fyre Festival. Neither Margolin nor Ja Rule was a party to the contract at issue in the case, so this decision doesn't take up the contract issues, but it is interesting on the fraud issue, so I'm blogging it anyway (also, how can you not blog a court opinion that has a footnote explaining what "FOMO" means?). Fraud requires pleading with particularity, and the plaintiffs fail to meet this burden. Although they allege many allegedly fraudulent statements, they fail to allege when many of those statements were made or whether the defendants knew at the time that the statements were untrue. After all, the defendants could have made the statements about Fyre Festival with every intention of delivering on their promises of an incredible festival. 

The one exception to this is a particular tweet at issue by Ja Rule. The plaintiffs properly allege the date of that tweet, which was the day before the festival was scheduled to start (and instead was canceled). The tweet reads, "The stage is set!!! In less than 24 hours, the first annual Fyre Festival begins. #festivallife" The plaintiffs also allege that Ja Rule must at least have been reckless in continuing to encourage people to attend a festival whose stage was not at all set. The plaintiffs trip up when it comes to alleging reliance on their part on the tweet, but the court gives them leave to amend to try to fix this failure. The court does not give the plaintiffs leave to amend any of the other failings of the complaint because of delay on the part of the plaintiffs. 

The court also discusses some negligence issues as well as tortious interference and unjust enrichment claims. When it comes to tortious interference, there were no allegations that Ja Rule or Margolin interfered with or caused Fyre Festival's inability to perform the contract, merely that they knew Fyre Festival would not be able to perform. As for the unjust enrichment claim, the court warns that this is not a catch-all cause of action and cannot be used to cure the defects in the other causes of action. 

Some other reporting on this ruling here, here, and here.  

(edit: h/t to Ryan Smith of Smith Law for sending the motion: Download 1-17-CV-03296-PKC Brief and opinion: Download Fyre Dismissal to me)

Warren Calls Arbitration “Exploitation”

In a letter to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s CEO, Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren asked the bank to stop “exploiting its customers” by using what the bank considers the “standard practice” of asking its customers to arbitrate potential claims against it.  Chase’s customers can, however, opt out of mandatory arbitration by mailing written rejection notices by Aug. 9, 2019.

Arbitration is, of course, easier for banks and other defendants than having to face a multitude of individual lawsuits.  The concern for smaller plaintiff such as private bank customers is that arbitration is not as neutral as a lawsuit as arbitrators are hired privately by, for example, the banks.  Arbitrators may thus be unduly biased in favor of the banks and more business savvy than bank customers, who might obtain greater protections from hiring an attorney and going to court.  The exploitation part comes in when defendants arguably seek to "sneak" arbitration onto unsuspecting, unsavvy bank customers who are not aware of all the pros and cons of various types of dispute resolution.

Case reminds us to pay for the insurance if you want recovery for a lost package

My students are always asking me about misdelivered packages, so I read this recent case out of the District of Oregon, Mansfield v. Leigh, Case No. 6:19-cv-00254-MK (behind paywall), with interest. It's a fairly straightforward case about a lost package, and a fairly straightforward analysis of your options for recovery if a package goes missing. The plaintiff was seeking over a thousand dollars in damages for the lost package, but the court finds that her recovery was limited to the fifty dollars of insurance she purchased (she actually received slightly more because the post office also refunded her service charge). 

This case is a reminder to take the postal insurance seriously. I once had a package go missing and I had insured it but not nearly for the value of what went missing. That was all on me, and I've taken that insurance situation seriously ever since. 

Unambiguously worded contract means no extrinsic evidence

A recent case out of the Southern District of Ohio, The Devine Group, Inc. v. Omni Hotels Corp., Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-186 (WOB) (behind paywall), is a fairly straightforward contract interpretation case with a good parol evidence discussion. The court finds that the contract is unambiguously worded and so refuses to look to any extrinsic evidence. If you're looking for a contract clause example to use in class, this might be a good one. 

 

Black family fires racist contractor

For very good reason, a black family fires a contractor who showed up for a job with a confederate flag on his truck in GA.  This raises issues of whether one can simply terminate a contract once entered into (one cannot with out at least having to pay damages, potentially in the form of wasted time and gas money here) or whether this was simply an at-will contract that can be terminated (that does not seem to be the case here.).  At any rate, isn't it incredible that in 2019, some "proud Southerners" still have to display their pride in such a blatantly tone deaf manner?  Racism ought to be a thing of the distant past, but clearly is not.  Shameful!

An ambiguity decision

A recent case out of Texas, Bitter Creek Water Supply Corp. v. Sims, No. 11-17-00080-CV (behind paywall), talks about a lot of contract issues, but I found the ambiguity discussion most interesting. The contract at issue, signed in 1986, tied the purchase price to whatever price Bitter Creek was paying the City of Sweetwater for water. At the time, Bitter Creek had been buying water from the City for many years. However, Bitter Creek no longer buys water from the City. Therefore, there's a dispute over how to interpret the contractual purchase price now that there is no City purchase price to tie it to.

Sims contended that under the UCC he could opt to read a reasonable price into the contract, now that the City purchase price had failed. Bitter Creek, though, argued that the parties had agreed to an express fixed price that they no longer had agreement on. The court discusses the UCC's application and ambiguity and finds that the provision is ambiguous and the parties' intent needs to be examined, leading to a factual dispute that can't be resolved on summary judgment. 

 

Contractors with White Ancestry got $300 million Claiming to be Native American

In St. Louis, MO, a contractor recently was awarded a lucrative government contract set aside for minority businesses by claiming to be Cherokee.  He was found out and stripped of his minority status.

“Since 2000, the federal government and authorities in 18 states, including California, have awarded more than $300 million under minority contracting programs to companies whose owners made unsubstantiated claims of being Native American.  The minority-owned certifications and contract work were issued in every West Coast state, New Mexico and Idaho, Texas and four Southern states, several states in the Midwest and as far east as Pennsylvania.”

There are only three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, but members of unrecognized, self-described Cherokee groups have received more than $300 million dollars in funds set aside for minorities. 

This, of course, is infuriating, but the “vetting process for Native American applicants appears weak in many cases, government records show, and officials often accept flimsy documentation or unverified claims of discrimination based on ethnicity. The process is often opaque, with little independent oversight.”

People trying to milk the system this way should be identified and action should, if appropriate, be taken against them to further deter such despicable contractual conduct. It is a federal crime, for instance, to sell arts and crafts falsely labeled as Native American.  Perhaps many different groups and gender identifications are discriminated against to some extent in government contracting, but existing law was created to remedy a very real problem: the white “old boys club.” Sorry for saying the truth, but the problem is real and needs to be addressed and remedied.

Don't rely on vague promises that you'll be "taken care of"

I had been paying attention to this case out of the Western District of Washington, Moi v. Chihuly Studio, Inc., Cause No. C17-0853RSL (behind paywall), because it raises interesting copyright authorship issues. The case is a lawsuit brought by a person who was one of Chihuly's assistants, who create artwork in Chihuly's name under Chihuly's supervision. The plaintiff worked for Chihuly in this way for fifteen years, until a falling-out between Chihuly and another of the assistants resulted in the deterioration of the plaintiff's relationship with Chihuly as well. The plaintiff filed this lawsuit alleging co-authorship of 285 artworks and requesting compensation for his work on them. You can read more about the lawsuit here. 

As I said, I was paying attention to this case for the copyright authorship analysis, which follows the Aalmuhammed test and finds that, because the plaintiff did not exercise control, he is not an author of the artworks, despite his copyrightable contributions to the artworks. The authorship test analysis also considers the lack of contract between the plaintiff and Chihuly as indicating that Chihuly did not intend to share authorship with the plaintiff. 

That same lack of contract dooms the plaintiff's attempt to seek compensation for his work. Because there's no contract, the plaintiff's cause of action is promissory estoppel, but Chihuly's promises over the years to compensate plaintiff by keeping track of which artworks plaintiff had contributed to were, in the court's view, too vague to constitute promises that the plaintiff could have relied on. The plaintiff confessed that he had no idea what his eventual compensation might be or when he would receive it, just that he trusted Chihuly to treat him "fairly." Promises forming the basis of promissory estoppel need to be clear and definite, and Chihuly's statements were simply too vague. Considering that plaintiff couldn't even say what they meant, the court refused to enforce them. 

This is, once again, a lesson in making sure you have a clear and complete understanding with someone, and not just vague platitudes. 

Another consideration discussion

I just blogged about a consideration case last week, and now here's another one out of Illinois, Johnson v. Illinois Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Professional Certification Association, Nos. 4-18-0562 4-18-0575 cons (behind paywall). This case concerns an at-will employment contract that was later modified to include a definite retirement date. The defendant argues that there was no consideration for this modification of the contract, and thus it's not binding. However, the court notes that Johnson gave up his ability to work for the defendant beyond the retirement date and that that served as consideration for the modification of the employment contract. There were also some changes in job duties and title as well as an additional agreement reached on how sick and vacation days would be used over the remainder of the employment term. All of this was sufficient to show that both parties bargained for things from the other in this new binding contract. 

A brand new apple variety leads to a discussion about extrinsic evidence

Continuing the theme of thinking about fall courses, a recent case out of the Western District of Washington, Phytelligence, Inc. v. Washington State University, Case No. C18-405 RSM (behind paywall), has a discussion about both extrinsic evidence and agreements to agree -- both topics my students often struggle with. Might be worthwhile to take a look at this recent analysis, especially if you teach in Washington. 

Plus it's a dispute about a new apple variety, which is pretty cool. You can read more about it here and here. 

 

If you don't pay for a raffle ticket, there's no contract for the prize

If you've already started thinking about gathering examples for your courses this fall, here's a consideration case for you out of Ohio, Forbes v. Showmann, Inc., Appeal No. C-180325. Forbes was an employee of Showmann, and at a holiday party Showmann gave its employees, including Forbes, raffle tickets. One of the prizes was what sounds like a pretty sweet cruise package, and Forbes won the cruise. Showmann terminated Forbes's employment a few weeks later and informed Forbes that the cruise package was conditioned on Forbes still being a Showmann employee when she took the cruise. 

Forbes sued for breach of contract but the problem was that it was undisputed that Forbes did not pay for the raffle ticket. Showmann simply distributed the raffle tickets for free to its employees. Therefore, there was no consideration with which to form a contract. Forbes tried to argue her employment by Showmann was the consideration for the ticket but Forbes's employment was not used to bargain for the raffle ticket in exchange, so therefore there was no contract. 

If you feel bad for Forbes, which I admit I kind of did based on these given facts, her conversion claim does survive, so there is some hope for her. 

The challenges of licensing music

This isn’t, strictly speaking, about contracts, I guess. But it is about a consent decree, which is at heart a document that binds parties to terms. The Department of Justice has announced that it is reviewing the antitrust consent decree that governs ASCAP and BMI, the two major performing rights organizations used by songwriters and music publishers. Because ASCAP and BMI control so much of the music licensing market, they have been governed by a consent decree for several decades, with the Department of Justice worried about the competitive effects of their near-monopoly over music licensing.

I thought, therefore, that maybe it was time for me to share my friend's Music Licensing Experience.

The music copyright holders keep noting that piracy is a major problem. However, piracy tends to decrease if you make it easier for people to gain legal access to the work in the question. For some time now, studies have shown that people will pay for content, if they are given a feasibly legal way to do it.

A friend of mine was starting a noncommercial podcast. Podcasts are all the rage now. They’re low-cost and have few barriers to entry, and recording equipment is so cheap and easy to come by these days, basically anyone can have a podcast. I am frequently asked by students for information about using music on podcasts. They’ve heard, of course, that any length of time less than thirty seconds is “automatic fair use.”

So my friend’s got this noncommercial podcast and they want to use, in a single episode, two separate clips of the same copyrighted song. Together, the clips total less than forty seconds. My friend, who is not a lawyer, was inclined to do what so many lawyers do, and just take the risk and use the song. “But no!” I protested. “You know me, a copyright lawyer! You should properly license the song!”

I had, in actuality, never licensed a song before. But, I thought, how hard can it be? It shouldn’t be hard, right? Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the music copyright holders to make it relatively easy for this kind of use to be licensed? Especially given the apparent stance BMI takes that there is no way for you to use music without a license.

(Fair use? What fair use?)

I told my friend that either BMI or ASCAP would probably have the rights to the song, and they should just ask for a license through the right one. So they looked into it. BMI ended up being the organization to contact, and my friend found a literal tab for Podcasts on the BMI website, so they contacted BMI.

I thought that would be the end of it for my friend, but BMI’s response, unfortunately, was not very helpful. BMI said that the only license it offers is a blanket license, so my friend could not license a single work the way they wanted. The blanket license would be an annual license of almost four hundred dollars a year – a lot of money for a noncommercial podcast that wanted to use a grand total of forty seconds of music from a single song. But, BMI informed them, that license would get my friend access to fourteen million songs!

The problem: My friend didn’t want access to fourteen million songs. My friend wanted one song. Also, I’m pretty sure that BMI is actually required by that consent decree currently under review to offer per-song licensing rates. See Section IX.C ("[BMI] shall not, in connection with any offer to license by it the public performance of musical compositions by music users other than broadcasters, refuse to offer a license . . . for the performance of such specific (i.e., per piece) musical compositions, the use of which shall be requested by the prospective licensee."); see also United States v. Broad. Music, Inc., 275 F.3d 168, 178 n.2 (2d Cir. 2001) ("[T]he per piece license . . . is explicitly required in Section IX(C).”). My friend told me what BMI said, and I told my friend that maybe they should try again, maybe they weren’t clear the first time. So they wrote back to BMI, clarifying that they wanted a per-song rate.

BMI responded saying that it was not capable of providing my friend with the licensing rights they wanted. Despite the fact that it had been very willing to provide my friend with a license for several hundred dollars in the previous email, it now took the stand that it did not have the ability to provide rights for a song used within a podcast, and my friend had to contact a different entity. I don’t know if I’m more alarmed by BMI trying to sell my friend a license that wouldn’t actually cover their use, or BMI lying about whether it could sell them a license that would cover their use.

At any rate, BMI at least provided my friend with the contact information for another entity, which my friend contacted. But that entity wrote back and said it was not the right entity and provided the contact information for yet another entity. Which never wrote back to my friend’s request at all.

So, in the end, that’s how music licensing goes if you’re a little guy, I guess: It doesn’t. My friend lost a little bit of faith in the U.S. copyright legal system as a result of their experience, and that definitely harms all of us. And as we’re thinking about the music business in the context of the consent decree, maybe we should also think about the people who use music. Because, sometimes, as studies keep showing, they’d really love to pay the artist, they literally can’t find the way to do it.

(Could my friend’s use qualify as fair use? I am offering no legal opinion on that. What I will say is that, fair use doesn’t stop you from getting a DMCA notice.)

Was Leaving Neverland a breach of contract by HBO based on its airing of a 1992 Michael Jackson concert?

HBO's Leaving Neverland documentary, detailing the allegations of sexual abuse leveled at Michael Jackson, has resulted in an interesting lawsuit in the Central District of California, Optimum Prods. v. Home Box Office, CV 19-1862-GW(PJWx) (behind paywall).

Because Jackson is dead, there is no defamation claim to be brought; therefore, this lawsuit is grounded in a contract between Jackson and Optimum's predecessor entity and HBO regarding televising one of Jackson's concerts from his Dangerous world tour, which HBO aired in October 1992. The contract contained a provision prohibiting HBO from making "any disparaging remarks concerning" Jackson. Optimum alleges that HBO has breached this provision by airing the Leaving Neverland documentary. 

Naturally the contract also contained an arbitration provision, which provided that the parties would choose an arbitrator and, if they couldn't agree, eventually the Superior Court of the State of the California for the County of Los Angeles would select the arbitrator. Optimum initially filed its complaint in state court, but HBO removed it to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. Optimum does not dispute the existence of diversity jurisdiction but argues that the arbitration provision also acts as a forum selection provision requiring the litigation be heard by California Superior Court in Los Angeles County. 

The court declines to construe the arbitration provision as conferring exclusive jurisdiction to California state court. The arbitration provision does not discuss exclusive jurisdiction at all. The plain language of the provision only provides the state court with one responsibility: choosing an arbitrator if the parties can't agree on one. That is not a conferral of exclusive jurisdiction. 

There is also a dispute between the parties over whether the suit needs to be arbitrated. The court is torn on that issue. The American Arbitration Association's rule that arbitrability of a contract be decided by the arbitrator came into effect after the parties had signed the 1992 contract, and the court is hesitant to apply it retroactively. There is precedent to support retroactive application but the court thinks it doesn't make sense to pretend that the parties "clearly and unmistakably" agreed to be bound by rules that did not even exist. None of the precedent provided to the court was binding, so the court requests that the parties discuss the issue further at an upcoming hearing. 

On this Memorial Day weekend, rethinking ever visiting any spa again...

A recent case out of New York, Leakey v. The Setai Group LLC, 151298/2014, concerns a tragic event. The plaintiff, Leakey, was allegedly sexually assaulted during a massage.

Leakey sued several entities, including the owners and operators of the spa, on theories of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of contract. The negligence claims failed because the massage therapist acted outside of the scope of his employment in sexually assaulting Leakey and there was no evidence the spa operators knew of any propensity by the therapist for inappropriate sexual conduct (this also doomed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim). As for the breach of contract claim, there was no promise that the spa or its employees would be safe, so there was nothing to breach. 

(You can read the complaint in the case here.)

About those added convention center fees...

I spent the past few days at a conference at the Boston Convention Center, a place so cavernous that at least I easily met my step targets every day walking between meeting rooms. The conference was an expensive one to attend (it would have been waaaay out of my price range if not for the academic rate), and enormously well-attended, and I found myself doing a lot of math: how much money in registration fees? but also, how much money to use this convention center? 

This post on extra convention center fees came across my social media just as I was musing on all of that. I know from other people who have dealt with convention centers that the extra fees are the real killer: You have to pay extra to use their catering, their AV equipment, etc. Even if all you've planned is a wedding, then you know how this goes with the add-ons. This is an arrangement that we seems to just be accepting, but maybe there should be more vocal outrage about it. 

Salmonella-infected Chicken is not a "Defective" Product

Salmonella-infected raw chicken meat is not “defective” under Maine law.  Anyone selling such meat also do not violate the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.  This is so even if tons of meat have been recalled by a manufacturer precisely because of a salmonella outbreak affecting the meat. Such held the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently.

The result may seem both incredibly gross and grotesque, but in a strange way, makes sense.  In the case, a raw food manufacturer sold almost 2 million pounds of raw meat to a food processor preparing chicken products such as frozen chicken cordon bleu products.  The manufacturer recalled the meat, causing losses to the processor in excess of $10 million.  The processor filed suit for breach of contract.  Both the trial and appellate courts held that the processor had failed to state a claim under F.R.C.P. 12(b)(6).

Why?  Because salmonella is an “inherent, unavoidable, and recognized component of raw chicken that is eliminated by proper cooking methods.”  Even though the recall admitted that the recall was adulterated with salmonella, the complaint did not allege that the chicken was contaminated with a form of salmonella that could notbe eliminated by proper cooking.  The sick consumers could have contracted the infections from merely touching the raw meat.

This shows the relatively low level of sanitary integrity that can be expected in today’s meat market. Bon Appetit! 

The case is Scarlett v. Air Methods Corporation, 2019 WL 1828908

Information Asymmetries Lead to Women Being Underpaid

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has revealed a plan that would overhaul American discrimination laws to ensure that women and men are paid the same for the same work.

Under the plan, companies with 100 or more employees would, among other things, be required to obtain a federal certification showing they are not underpaying women.  If they fail to do so, they may be fined.  The burden would be on the employers to show that any pay gap is based on merit, performance, or seniority.  If companies discriminate, they would be fined 1% of their average daily profits for every 1% of their average daily profits for every 1% gap that exists between the gender-based pay differential.  The plan would also bar employers from asking job applicants about their salary history and ban forced arbitration in pay discrimination disputes.

But is this really necessary?  Can’t employees themselves contract around this problem in a free marketplace?

Sadly, the answer is no. Women who work full time are paid an average of 80 cents for every dollar paid to men.  For black women, the figure is 61 cents.  For Latinas: only 53 cents.  And we are talking about pay for the same jobs; not educational or other relevant differences.

Of course, this is just a proposal from a political candidate who at this point in time appears unlikely to win the race.  But it raises an important, yet sadly not new, contractual problem, namely that of disparity in bargaining positions.  As the situation is now, much of the burden of avoiding this problem is on the potential or actual employee.  If a woman needs a job, how is she going to ensure that she is, in effect, paid the same as her fellow male workers?  In other words, how would she even find out what males earn in a particular job?  She can’t. And the pressure of adding one’s salary history is also known to create a bargaining inequality.  This is an example of information asymmetry; a situation in which government action might help ensure a better situation for individuals who have proved unable to obtain that situation contractually.  This is a political issue that will, of course, have to be decided by legislators.  The free market is not producing an acceptable situation here as it is unacceptable that employers pay their employees differently simply because of gender. The fact that race makes the pay disparity even greater makes matters worse.

Contract damages measures can be super-complicated!

This recent case out of Delaware, Leaf Invenergy Co. v. Invenergy Renewables LLC, C.A. No. 11830-VCL, is a corporate disagreement that requires the court to interpret the contract and then establish the proper measure of damages. Which is very complicated, with the courts disagreeing on what the benefit of the bargain was, what needs to be considered to put the party in the position they would have been in but for the breach, and how the theory of efficient breach affects all of this. Damages is always a unit that makes my students' heads hurt, and this is a case that reminds me why!

h/t to Eric Chiappinelli from Texas Tech!