ContractsProf Blog

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. 

 

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. 

Don't just stand there, let's get to it: Second Circuit orders payment of "Vogue" royalties (aside, I hadn't listened to "Vogue" in a while, and it totally started my week off right!)

A recent case out of the Second Circuit, Pettibone v. WB Music Corp., 18-1000-cv, caught my eye because I teach the underlying copyright dispute driving this contractual dispute. You can listen to the case's oral argument here.

Pettibone composed the song "Vogue" with Madonna and entered into a contract with Warner where Warner collected the royalties for the song and split them with Pettibone. In 2012, Pettibone and Warner were sued for copyright infringement. They each had their own counsel and each bore their own costs in successfully defending the lawsuit, both in the trial court and on appeal. (You can read the appellate court decision here. We talk about it in my Transformative Works and Copyright Fair Use class when we do a unit on music.)

After the conclusion of the copyright suit, Warner withheld over $500,000 worth of royalties from Pettibone, claiming that under Section 8.1 of the agreement between Warner and Pettibone, it was allowed to withhold the royalties to pay for its defense of the copyright infringement suit. Section 8.1 read in part, "Each party will indemnify the other against any loss or damage (including court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees) due to a breach of this agreement by that party which results in a judgment against the other party . . . ." 

Pettibone sued, arguing that he had never breached the agreement and therefore Section 8.1 did not permit Warner to withhold any royalties. The district court found that Section 8.1 "unambiguously requires Pettibone to indemnify Warner for the attorneys' fees and costs," and dismissed Pettibone's complaint. 

In another example of ambiguous understandings of ambiguity, the appellate court here reversed the district court's holding, instead finding that Section 8.1 is "pock-mocked with ambiguity." In the Second Circuit's opinion, a better reading of the section was that, if there was no breach, each party should carry its own attorneys' fees and costs. In fact, Section 8.1 went on to read that "each party is entitled to be notified of any action against the other brought with respect to [the song 'Vogue'], and to participate in the defense thereof by counsel of its choice, at its sole cost and expense" (emphasis added). A fair reading of the section, the Second Circuit said, was that it required Pettibone to indemnify Warner if Pettibone breached the contract, but not otherwise.

Warner was the party that drafted the contract, and could easily have stated that indemnification happened in the event of any allegations, not just any breach. That was not, though, how the contract was drafted. 

The effect of Warner's argument would be to shift a million dollars' worth of attorneys' fees onto Pettibone, just because there was a lawsuit, "regardless of merit or frivolousness." The Second Circuit found that to be "an extraordinary result" not justified by the section's ambiguous language. Therefore, the Second Circuit ordered reversal of the district court's dismissal, judgment for Pettibone, and calculation of the royalties improperly withheld from Pettibone, as well as consideration of Pettibone's request for attorneys' fees in connection with the instant action and appeal. 

Reminder: unconscionability requires both procedural and substantive

A recent case out of the Northern District of California, Sanchez v. Gruma Corporation, Case No. 19-cv-00794-WHO, is a good case to point to to remind students that unconscionability has both procedural and substantive sides, and you need to have both. In the case, the court admits that the plaintiff's account of the signing of the contract raised procedural unconscionability issues: the plaintiff alleged that he was given no choice, was told if he did not sign the contract he could not work at the company, was not told what the contract really meant, and was given no opportunity to review the contract. However, this procedural unconscionability ultimately didn't matter, because the court ruled the contract was not substantively unconscionable. There was one provision the court found unenforceable but the court severed that provision and enforced the rest of the agreement. 

 

 

Consideration in California contracts

A recent case out of the Central District of California, Chromadex, Inc. v. Elysium Health, Inc., Case No. SACV 16-02277-CJC(DFMx) (behind paywall), discusses consideration allegations under California law. I never practiced in California and don't teach in California, so I didn't realize that California has a statute, Cal. Civ. Code § 1614, that provides that "[a] written instrument is presumptive evidence of consideration." The defendants argued that the contract in question did not have consideration because the consideration was an offer of employment to Morris but Morris left that employment the same day he signed the agreement. However, the court pointed out that the plaintiff alleged the agreement was a written instrument and attached it to the complaint, which raised the presumption that it had adequate consideration, so the court refused to dismiss the claim. 

Some express condition language for you

When I teach express conditions, we talk a lot about the language that you use to create them. A recent case out of the Northern District of Ohio, Health and Wellness Lifestyle Clubs, LLC v. Raintree Golf, LLC, Case No. 1:17CV2189 (behind paywall), has some examples. The agreement in question read that it was "contingent upon Purchaser's obtaining and delivering to Seller a written unconditional commitment or commitments," and continued that "the obligations of Seller to consummate the transaction . . . shall be subject to the fulfillment on or before the date of Closing of all of the following conditions," both of which created an express condition that a written unconditional commitment needed to be delivered. Because there was never any such written unconditional commitment in this case, the dependent obligations never became due.  

An interesting case about reformation...and tricking ourselves about our pasts

Reformation is one of those doctrines that I love to have class discussions over, really interrogating when (and whether) courts should employ it. A recent decision out of Delaware, In re 11 West Partners, LLC, C.A. No. 2017-0568-SG, has a nice reformation discussion in clear, straightforward language that I think could be useful in class. I especially like the Court's remarks about "the conclusions of social scientists and psychologists that witnesses may come to believe in factual scenarios beneficial to them . . . ." It's a gentle and sympathetic decision regarding "honorable" men whose recollections of the truth all differ. 

h/t to Eric Chiappinelli at Texas Tech for forwarding us this case!

An employer isn't bound by a policy unless the employee is aware of and relies upon the policy (e.g., reads the handbook!)

A recent case out of Illinois, Brown-Wright v. East St. Louis School District 189, NO. 5-18-0311 (behind paywall), finds that in order for an employee policy to operate as a binding contract, the employee has to have read the policy.

In the case, the plaintiff was suing based on an alleged violation of the sick leave payout policy. The plaintiff, however, did not find out about the policy her case was relying upon interpreting until after her employment ended. Therefore, it was not the case that she learned of the policy and continued to work as acceptance of and consideration for that policy. Because the plaintiff did not read the policy before terminating employment, she could not rely upon it now. 

This is a lesson to all of us to read those policies our employers send around. 

At the intersection of illegal contracts, immigration policy, and fast food restaurants

When I teach about illegal contracts, I often find myself talking about paid assassins, because for some reason it's the only example I can come up with on the fly (let's not psychoanalyze that too much). A recent case out of California, Lin v. Chiu, B285053, has a different illegality analysis. The case involved a contract concerning an investment of money into the opening of a fast food restaurant franchise. Chiu alleged that Lin used the contract to apply for permanent residency in the United States, even though the contract did not fulfill the requirements for such an application, and therefore the contract was illegal and unenforceable. 

The court disagreed. Even if Lin's attempt to use the contract as the basis for residency might be questionable, the central purpose of the contract itself was a straightforward investment, not anything illegal. Nothing about the alleged illegal use of the contract had anything to do with Lin's contractual rights to repayment of his investment, and there were no allegations that the contract was merely a sham to defraud the U.S. government. It was a bona fide contract in and of itself, with the objective of receiving a return on investment, and not the objective of winning Lin permanent residency. Maybe Lin had an illegal motive underlying his actions, but that did not change the fact that his actions were a legitimate business transaction. Enforcing the investment contract, the court found, would not encourage others to use such contracts as an illegal basis for permanent residency. 

The Two ships Peerless, the Two Players Brooks, and “The Deal that Never Really Was”

Dear readers:

The below guest blog was shared with us by Oren Gross, the Irving Younger Professor of Law with the University of Minnesota Law School:

Who amongst us has not taught the 1864 case of Raffles v. Wichelhaus, a.k.a. the two ships Peerless? The story of the ships (by some accounts there have been up to eleven ships bearing the same name!) has tantalized and captured the imagination of numerous generations of students learning about meeting of the minds.

You can imagine my delight when, taking a much-needed break from grading exams, I came across a modern version of the story involving three NBA teams and two players named Brooks.

The Washington Wizards, it seems, wanted to strengthen their roster by adding the Phoenix Suns forward Trevor Ariza. For its part, Phoenix was interested in Memphis Grizzlies players and the Grizzlies – in Wizards players. And so, the Wizards’ general-manager concocted a three-team trade and served as the go-between the Suns and the Grizzlies. As part of that trade, the Suns were to get two players from Memphis, namely Selden and Brooks.

Simple enough. Or so it seems. However, as Chris Herrington reported in the Daily Memphian on December 15, 2018, the deal fell apart or, in an insight worthy of contracts’ scholars, “maybe never quite was.”

The problem is that Memphis currently has not one, but two, players on its roster whose last name is Brooks. And whereas the Suns thought they were getting Dillon Brooks, the Grizzlies intended to trade MarShon Brooks. Thus, while “two Grizzlies sources confirmed to The Daily Memphian that it was MarShon Brooks, not Dillon Brooks in the deal. Media in Phoenix, however, insisted it was Dillon, not MarShon.”

As the two teams negotiated through the Wizards as the go-between, the miscommunication as to the identity of the player actually to be traded was not revealed until news of the deal leaked to the media.

The outcome? The three-team deal collapsed. As Herrington put it “the deal that never really was was nixed.”

A past consideration case reminds us that being recognized for your past hard work isn't good for your breach of contract claim

I don't know about everyone else but my casebook teaches past consideration using very old cases. Here's past consideration raised as an issue with a recent case out of the Southern District of California, Wright v. Old Gringo Inc., Case No. 17-cv-1996-BAS-MSB (behind paywall). 

The case is really interesting, because the court acknowledged that the complaint had proper consideration allegations: ownership interest, salary, and performance bonuses in exchange for providing "expertise and services." The problem came from the deposition testimony, all of which seemed to establish that in fact the ownership interest had been provided as a reward for previous work. The plaintiff herself testified that the ownership interest was effective even if she immediately quit the job, indicating it wasn't in exchange for future services. Plaintiff's friends and relatives provided similar testimony, that the ownership interest was given "to show . . . appreciation" and "for . . . recognition of her hard work." There was no evidence presented that the ownership interest was offered on the condition of future work in exchange. For that reason, the court granted summary judgment for failure of consideration. 

The plaintiff's remaining claims were permitted to go forward, including promissory estoppel and tort claims. Those claims (as I remind my students!) don't require consideration. 

I find this case really interesting because I'm sure the plaintiff's friends only thought they were helping her with their testimony. This is the kind of thing that I think makes instinctive sense to non-lawyers: the plaintiff did something awesome and they recognized it by giving her an amazing gift. But lawyers know that consideration doctrine makes that a bad thing, not a good one. 

(The decision also contains a statute of limitations and damages discussion.)

You and your corporate entities: often a complex story with repercussions

I got really excited when I saw this case because it's always nice to have a recent parol evidence case to look at, and this one involves movies!

It's a recent case out of Mississippi, Rosenfelt v. Mississippi Development Authority, No. 2017-CA-01120-SCT (you can listen to the oral arguments here). The MDA had communications with Rosenfelt regarding his movie studios' attempt to make movies in Mississippi, eventually guaranteeing a loan through a term sheet signed by the MDA and by Rosenfelt on behalf of his two movie studios. When Rosenfelt wanted to make another movie and applied for another loan under the terms of the agreement, the MDA turned down the request. Rosenfelt then sued for specific performance and damages. Rosenfelt initially triumphed on a motion for partial summary judgment but then, during the specific performance debate in the case, the MDA filed a summary judgment motion challenging Rosenfelt's standing, which resulted in dismissal of Rosenfelt's complaint. 

Rosenfelt appealed, alleging that there was an agreement between him personally and the MDA. However, the court noted that all communications from the MDA were directed explicitly to Rosenfelt as president of the relevant movie studio. The court's decision came down to contract interpretation: All of the written documents in the case unambiguously referred to Rosenfelt in his official corporate capacity or were signed by Rosenfelt in his official corporate capacity. Given the lack of ambiguity on the face of the documents, the court refused to consider parol evidence as to whether Rosenfelt was personally a party to any of the agreements.  Because all of Rosenfelt's allegations concerned his personal agreement with the MDA, the court dismissed the suit. 

This case serves as a reminder that, once you have set up corporate entities, you need to be careful to remember how those corporate entities impact not just your legal liabilities but also your legal rights. 

In honor of the Red Sox, some baseball contracts

Hello! I was away at a conference last week and then the Red Sox* decided to win the World Series, which threw off all productivity for a while. As I ease back into blogging, I thought I'd link you to this piece from Business Insider, analyzing some of the terms set forth in the 2011-era version of Major League Baseball's uniform contract. I find my students always love to look at real-life contracts, and this is a nice point in the year to do it, as it's a nice way to demonstrate that they are now able to (or should be able to!) understand more of the contract than they might have on the first day of class. 

Of course, I always try to impress upon my students that contracts can be negotiated, so here's a list of some more unusual contract clauses baseball players were successful in getting teams to agree to. 

*(not the Red Sex)

If you're looking for a statute of frauds "cannot be performed within a year" case

I just gave a midterm in my contracts class, which is always so useful to crystallize the places where the students are having consistent understanding issues. For me this year, one of the tricky parts seems to be the statute of frauds, so it was nice to see this recent case out of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Northern Group, Inc. v. Tech 4 Kids Inc., Case No. 17-C-1367 (behind paywall), that deals with a fairly straightforward statute of frauds issue. 

In the case, Northern Group alleged that the parties had an oral agreement for commissions for sales and brought causes of action related to the breach of this agreement. Tech 4 Kids argued that the claims should be dismissed, in part because the oral agreement should have been in writing under the statute of frauds. However, as the court noted, the statute of frauds does not require a contract to be in writing unless it cannot be performed within a year. While it was true that the sales agreements required to be formed to result in commissions under the contract could sometimes taje years to finalize, Northern Group could conceivably have arranged some sales agreements within a year. Moreover, the agreement was terminable at will by either party, so either party could have decided within a year not to continue with the arrangement. Therefore, the oral agreement was capable of being performed within one year and so was not void under the statute of frauds. 

Banksy keeps things interesting

Here's me poking my head out from a weekend of midterm grading to thank Banksy for a situation right out of a contracts hypothetical. 

Thank you to Eric Chiappinelli and Jennifer Taub for the heads-up!

Uber fails to establish an accord and satisfaction on a motion to dismiss

If you're looking for a recent accord and satisfaction case, look no further! I've got one for you out of the Northern District of California, TSI USA LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc., Case No. 17-cv-03536-HSG (behind paywall). In the case, Uber and TSI had a contract that Uber terminated. TSI received a termination notice and a check for a little over $200,000. TSI responded to Uber with outstanding invoices Uber owed payment on, amounting to more than $1.4 million. TSI eventually sued Uber for, inter alia, breach of contract, and Uber moved to dismiss the claim, arguing that that TSI's cashing of the $200,000 check operated as an accord and satisfaction, prohibiting TSI's breach of contract claim. 

The court disagreed. Accord and satisfaction requires that the check be presented in good faith and with a conspicuous statement that it is meant to satisfy the entire debt. Construing the facts in the light most favorable to TSI, Uber could not establish that its check of $200,000 met "reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing," given that TSI alleged Uber owed over $1.4 million. In addition, while the termination notice stated "by executing below you acknowledge and agree that such payment constitutes full and final payment," it was followed by a line for signature labeled "Chief Executive Officer." TSI asserted that it thought the signature of the CEO was required for the payment to constitute full and final payment, not that the cashing of the check by itself. The court agreed with TSI that the language was not so "explicit and unequivocal as a matter of law so as to preclude TSI from asserting its breach of contract claim." Therefore, the breach of contract claim survived. 

Sometimes you've just got to shrug and live with the precedent you've got

There comes a time in every teaching semester (usually very early on...) where you have to coax your students to be comfortable with courts contradicting each other. You have to teach them to distinguish the cases, to make sense of it, but sometimes I feel like the answer to the contradictions is "the parties didn't argue that point and it just got missed and now we just have to deal."

I was thinking about this as I read a recent case out of the Third Circuit, Cook v. General Nutrition Corp., No. 17-3216 (behind paywall), which affirmed a failed lawsuit against GNC for, among other things, breach of contract. The appellants made several arguments for why their claims should not have been dismissed, one of them that GNC's termination of the contract was a breach. But the Third Circuit noted that termination was permitted by the contract: "[The contract] expressly permit[ted] GNC to unilaterally modify or cancel the agreement at any time, with or without notice."

That was the line that gave me pause, because I only recently taught Harris v. Blockbuster, which holds a contractual provision illusory precisely because it permitted Blockbuster to unilaterally change the contract at any time without even having to provide any notice. Other courts have definitely agreed with Harris, and  while it's been distinguished I didn't really see any courts disagreeing with the conclusion. Third Circuit courts do seem to apply the illusory promise doctrine, so it doesn't seem like they've just decided to do without this doctrine in the Third Circuit. 

It does seem like Harris can be read as only applying in the context of agreements to arbitrate and not all agreements (although there was apparently an arbitration clause in the GNC contract). Unfortunately, this is just me guessing as to how you can distinguish Harris, because there is zero discussion of illusory promises in the Third Circuit's very brief opinion. The court asserts that the contract gave GNC this right, and that while it might be "unfortunate," it was permissible and therefore not a breach. 

Here's one for the "house renovations gone wrong" file

If you're turning to teaching damages in your semester, here's a recent case out of Florida for you, Forbes v. Prime General Contractors, Inc., Case No. 2D17-353. This is one of those cases where the homeowners and the contractor had a contract where the homeowners would pay periodically, as milestones for the work were reached. After completion of the scheduled demolition, though, the contractor told the homeowners that the cost to complete the project had almost doubled. The homeowners refused to pay the extra money, insisting on enforcement of the cost in the contract. The contractor walked off the job at that point. The home, having been in the demolition stage of the project, was uninhabitable. The homeowners rented another house and looked in vain for another contractor to finish the job. Finally, they bought a new house and let the old house go into foreclosure. They also sued the contractor for breach of contract. 

The homeowners won their beach of contract case, but the lower court only awarded them their cost of renting the alternative house as damages, stating that the homeowners had failed to prove any other damages and also had failed to mitigate damages. The appellate court disagreed. The appellate court permitted the homeowners to treat the breach of contract as total and found that they should be awarded damages to place them in the position they would have been in had they never signed the contract. This could include reimbursement of the amount they had paid the contractor and the equity they lost in their home when they had to let it lapse into foreclosure, as well as the rent they had paid. 

The appellate court also found that the homeowners had taken reasonable steps to mitigate damages. They rented while they searched for someone to finish the renovations. When that search failed, they bought a new house rather than continuing to make rent payments. Even if they hadn't bought the new house, they would not have been able to afford continuing to pay rent and the mortgage on the uninhabitable house, so whether they were renting or owning that house would have lapsed into foreclosure either way. The appellate court found that there was nothing else the homeowners could have done to avoid further damages.