Actually, my last comment should have been addressed to Philster. Sorry, PK!
Fenris
I’ve been interested in this case since I first heard about it. I keep waiting to hear some reasonable defense from the company. Something along the lines that he played some stupid joke on a regular basis that would clue in the staff that he was not serious. I’ve heard nothing of the sort in all this time.
To suggest that the employee should have gotten something in writing is ridiculous. Every person working in the service industry or sales must ask to see the “terms and conditions” of every motivation contest? I’ll bet that the people that say, “yeah why not”, are the same type that piss and moan about regulations and added cost to business to make everything legally specified in fine print. When did someone’s word become something that could later be laughed off as a “joke”?
I agree with Johnny, Minty and the others who think the waitress is entitled to a car. It seems to me that the key question is not the state of mind of the joker - whether the offer was intended as a joke - but the state of mind of the waitress - whether she reasonably understood the offer as bona fide.
I think it’s worth comparing this to the recent case involving “pepsi points” and an airplane.
In the “pepsi” case, a reasonable person would have understood that the offer of a military airplane in return for enough pepsi points was probably not serious, given the context.
Based on the facts as disclosed in this thread, it seems to me that the waitress reasonably expected to receive a car for her trouble.
Anyway, sorry to continue the hijack.
Just wanted to add another thought:
This is so lame.
I only hope that this guy’s suppliers screw him over in a similar way. Or maybe the next time he buys a car. ("Why did you assume your car would come with an engine? We certainly never promised you one . . . ") Or maybe if he tries to sell the business. (“Ok, here’s your 200,000 pesos. Did you think I meant 200,000 dollars? Well, I never said so. Too bad. Now where are the keys?”)
I ma greatly sympathetic to this woman’s cause.
But to ask a devil’s advocate sort of question… Minty has laid out the elements of tortious fraud fairly well, at least as I recall. But tell me again where “her detriment” is? The mere fact that she anticipated a car and didn’t get one does not create detriment, or else any broken promise would be actionable as innocent misrepresentation.
I think the general consensus is that she extended some effort in selling beer, effort that she normally wouldn’t have made, and that is her detriment. But as I understand her job, it was to… sell beer.
If this were pursued under a theory of breach of contract, I’d say there was a failure of consideration, since she was obligated by her employment to sell beer anyway. Since the prevailing mood seems to be an action in tort, then I have to ask: OK, she relied on his misrepresentation, but to what detriment?
- Rick
Bricker, a question:
What if the manager hadn’t used a joke, but rather had simply said “Oh, we decided not to give you the car; after all, your job is to sell beer!”
It seems to me that yes, it is the woman’s job to sell beer, but that doesn’t prevent a business from offering perks for better performance. Once that offer is made, it can’t be rescinded.
The fellow obviously knew he was fooling the waitresses (why else escort them to the parking lot), and got something in return to the detriment of the winner. That, to me, is fraud.
Yes, it probably would have been better to have it in writing. However, it’s not exactly commonplace to demand paperwork from your employers for every instance when they might screw you. In fact, that sort of thing could easily get you labeled as a troublemaker (and subsequently denied promotions, or perhaps even fired).
That’s an interesting question, Bricker - how can the waitress have suffered a detriment if she had an obligation to sell beer anyway.
Or, from the contract point of view, what consideration is there on the part of the waitress.
Here’s my answer: Presumably, she is an “at will” employee - she is free to quit at any time, for any reason. So, by continuing to work at Hooters, she is suffering a detriment (and offering consideration).
A hypothetical: You get paid $2000 a month as a waitress. Your boss tells you that next month, you will be paid $3000. You work the month, but he only gives you $2000, claiming that he was “only joking.” Clearly you are entitled to an additional $1000 from your boss.
On the other hand, if you had a year-long contract to work for $2000 a month, and one month, you and your boss agree that he will give you $3000, that agreement might not be enforceable. And you might not recover on a fraud claim either.
Now, it is true that many courts will not let a policeman collect a reward for capturing a wanted man because of the pre-existing duty rule. And it is not obvious, as a matter of principal, why this principle is different from what I just described. But let’s face reality: Companies offer rewards and incentives to their employees all the time, and there’s really no good reason not to hold companies to those promises.
“I didn’t say ‘new-model car’. I said, ‘new model car.’ See? It’s still shrink-wrapped. Thanks for the $30,000.”
But we don’t have to ignore the joker’s state of mind. Maybe he did indeed say “‘brand new toy Yoda.’ Two words spaced apart”. But I think that blindfolding her and walking her out to the parking lot, clearly proves that his intention was to mislead her into thinking that he had said “Toyota”.
Well, I think that for the waitress’s breach of contract claim, the joker’s state of mind is pretty much irrelevant. As I recall, most jurisdictions follow the “objective” approach in deciding whether an actor is bound to a contract. The question, for the most part, is how that person’s words and acts would be interpreted by a reasonable person.
As far as the waitress’s fraud claim goes - I agree that intent is relevant, and that intent to defraud can be inferred from the circumstances.
Bricker, I’ll agree that the woman’s job was to sell beer. But the prize wasn’t awarded for selling beer, it was awarded for selling more beer than her co-workers. Clearly, she was not expected, when hired, to out-sell the rest of the the waitstaff, so for that month, she was putting forth more effort than was stipulated in her employment contract. The extra portion of effort (which put her over the top of the other employees) is the damage she suffered.
The failure of consideration problem only goes to the breach of contract claim, of course. I believe there are cases out there that say extra effort by an employee is indeed valid consideration, but looking them up would be a pain in the neck and time consuming.
With promissory estoppel, of course, you don’t need consideration at all–just detrimental reliance. Our plaintiff here was presumably an at-will employee who could have quit at any time. If the car offer kept her on the job when she otherwise would have quit, you’ve got plenty of detrimental reliance. I believe extra hours worked or even additional effort would probably also work for detrimental reliance sufficient to support promissory estoppel. Same thing for the fraud claim.
It’s the fraud claim that really gets you the big $ here, since fraud opens up the door to punitive damages, mental anguish, etc. The availability of punitives varies from state to state, of course, and I don’t know what Florida’s law is on that topic.
Of course, he didn’t say a NEW Toyota, or Toy Yoda.
I find in favor of the plantiff, for the value of the cheapest beater Toyota currently in the local classifieds (shouldn’t be more than $1000 or so).
According to the above-linked article, the scumbucket…oh sorry, the STORE MANAGER admits that he said the prize would be “new.” I hope this woman takes the company and the individual to the cleaners.
If the situation is as described, then I think she should get a car, too.
I suspect what it will come down to is the judge’s estimation of whether or not the waitresses really believed that a car was at stake. After all, it could have been a situation where everyone knew what the real deal was, but some nasty waitress decided to try and exploit a joke by claiming that she never knew it.
Right - she sold more beer thinking she would get a car. So, she should get the car as agreed.
BUT - if I was her employers, I’d be interested to know why it was she managed to increase her beer sales when a car was offered. Was she slacking before, or what?
Do you really stand by this ** Philster **? I think you wrote this before you though it through. But just incase not then it would be ok to whip people to make them work harder - I think you got my point.
Apologies for any gross misconceptions – remember my expertise is in criminal law, not this confusing civil stuff!
I agree that promissory estoppel requires only reliance to her detriment – but not all jurisdictions (Virginia being an excellent example) recognize promissory estoppel as a cause of action, Restatement (Second) of Contracts notwithstanding. And I agree that, *if she otherwise would have quit, *but remained employed to try to win the car, she’s made her case… but that’s a question of fact that hasn’t ever been alleged, so far as I can see. And if she’s been there for two years, let’s say, how likely is it that she planned to quit that month, but remained for the contest?
To those posters that discussed intent… the intent of the boss does make a difference, at least under Virginia law, as between constructive fraud and actual fraud.
I agree that the action in tort opens up the door to punitive damages – isn’t promissory estoppel an action in contracts, though?
- Rick
You’re correct that promissory estoppel sounds in contract, so no punitives are available. I don’t know whether Florida recognizes promissory estoppel, but nearly every American jurisdiction does. Virginia’s been behind the curve for decades. After all, you guys still apply contributory negligence to bar any recovery, right? 
It’s interesting – although there have been several cases in Virginia that assumed without deciding that promissory estoppel gave rise to a cause of action in Virginia, it wasn’t until 1997 that the Virginia Supreme Court definitively shut the door on promissory estoppel in Virginia (Schafer v. Cordant, 254 Va. 514, 518 (1997) - I don’t have the southeastern cite handy.
So if we’re behind the times, it’s on purpose. 
That said, while this has been a fun digression, I doubt Florida cares about the law in Virginia, and I don’t have any idea how Florida feels about promissory estoppel… any Florida lawyers out there?
- Rick