Mary is a senior in college studying communication. She spent the 2017 summer wo
ID: 365646 • Letter: M
Question
Mary is a senior in college studying communication. She spent
the 2017 summer working as an intern at WSBT, where she assisted the news production team
with the daily local news broadcasts. Mary’s supervisor during that internship was Jasmine, a
news producer at WSBT. She had spent the previous summer (2016) interning at WGN in
Chicago. At WGN, Mary’s supervisor was an on-air reporter named Steve.
Just before Thanksgiving, on November 21, 2017, Jasmine emailed Mary. The email
subject was “Great News!” and the text read as follows:
Hi Mary,
Hope your senior year has been a blast! You mentioned this summer that you
might be interested in a full-time job here at WSBT after you graduate. You
know we loved working with you and that you brought valuable talents to our
team here. What you may not know is that one of our junior producers just told
us that he would have to move back East for family issues, and we now have a job
available for you starting in January!!! I know you still have classes to finish up,
but I thought you might be able to work something out, especially if we had you
work the night shift until you graduate. Anyway, please let me know what you
think by next week. This is all happening so fast, and I can’t guarantee that
another junior producer job will be open in six months. You’ve got to snag these
when they’re available The pay would be $35K/year to start, and I’m told that
I can offer you benefits, too.
Talk to you soon,
J
Mary was flattered to receive the message and was excited about working in local news.
But she was worried about whether she would be able to handle a full-time job during her final
semester. After talking to her parents and her academic advisor, she learned that she could
reduce her credits during the spring semester, add a class or two during the summer, and
graduate in August. When Mary returned from Thanksgiving break, on November 27, she
replied with the following:
Hi Jasmine – I would love to take the job and really want to work with you all
again. I still need to work out a few details with my classes, but that shouldn’t be
a huge problem. Any chance I could produce the evening news? I think I can get
all early a.m. classes and wouldn’t need to do the overnight shift to produce the
morning broadcast. Also, if there’s any chance I could postpone starting a bit
(even February or March or something), that would really help things a lot. Just
let me know. Thanks! – Mary
Later that night, Mary went out to dinner to celebrate with her friends. After the meal,
and after consuming multiple glasses of wine, Mary told her friends the news. One of those
friends, Holly, was shocked and upset, because she had planned on living in Chicago with Mary
after graduation. Holly convinced Mary that, if she was good enough to get this offer from
WSBT, she could also get an offer from WGN in Chicago. By the end of the conversation,
Holly had convinced Mary to contact Steve at WGN to learn about possibilities and, raising her
wine glass, added with a wink: “If you dump this whole living-in- South-Bend idea and move to
Chicago with me, I’ll pay off your student loans. You know how rich my uncle is!” While they
all laughed and toasted to that idea, Mary yelled with a smile: “I’m sold! We’re moving to
Chicago!”
As promised, Mary emailed her old WGN supervisor, Steve, the next day. They
corresponded over email and phone over the next few days. During these exchanges, Steve told
Mary the following:
Though I don’t make the ultimate hiring decisions, I will definitely make sure you
land a job here. As you’ll remember from your time here, I know the right strings
to pull to make this kinda stuff happen. Send me your resume, and let’s stay in
touch. You’re going to love working here full-time.
Mary shared this with Holly, who was thrilled. They didn’t discuss Holly’s rich uncle,
but Mary held out some hope that Holly’s toast wasn’t a joke. She knew living in
Chicago would be expensive.
The next day, December 1, Jasmine replied to Mary’s email, stating: “Evening
shift is yours. The pay would be a little less though ($32K). And if you need to start a
little later in the winter, we can make it happen (we can’t wait until summer, though).
We must be desperate ;) Talk to you soon!” Mary felt so horrible about letting down
Jasmine and WSBT that she was too embarrassed to even reply to Jasmine’s email.
As the spring semester began, she tried contacting Steve multiple times and
started getting worried that he was not responding. Eventually, in late February, she
called one of her old colleagues at WGN to see if the colleague knew what was going on
with summer hiring. During this conversation, Mary learned that Steve had been fired
around New Years and that WGN was in a hiring freeze. Mary’s old colleague was even
worried about potential layoffs and predicted that WGN probably wouldn’t be hiring any
news production positions for “a long time.”
Mary freaked out and called Jasmine at WSBT to explain what had happened.
Jasmine was curt; she seemed offended and offered little information. After the call,
motivated by desperation, Mary replied to Jasmine’s December 1 email with the
following: “I accept your offer and can start right away.” Jasmine replied immediately:
“You’re a good kid, but you’ve got a lot to learn about professionalism, Mary. No jobs
available at WSBT for you anymore.”
Several months later, Mary moved to Chicago with Holly and began working
three different part-time jobs to pay for her rent, living expenses, and student loans.
Answer the following questions by applying what you learned about the law of contract to
the facts above. For questions A and B, you should assume that Jasmine and Steve were agents for WSBT and
WGN, respectively (i.e., no need to apply or analyze the law of agency).
A. If Mary sued WSBT for specific performance, alleging that she had a valid
and enforceable contract for employment, would she succeed?
B. If Mary sued WGN, seeking damages under the theory of promissory
estoppel (or detrimental reliance), would she succeed?
C. If Mary sued Holly, alleging that Holly’s failure to pay Mary’s student
loans was a breach of contract, would she succeed?
Explanation / Answer
A.If Marry Sued WSBT for specific performance, alleging that she has a valid and enforceable contract for employment, she will not succeed as whatever the conversations between WSBT and Marry was there, it was through email only. Though there was an open offer of employment from WSBT to Marry, that was not accepted by Marry initially.Marry Approached WSBT much after the offer was actually made.Moreover it can not be called as a contract.Therefore Marry will not succeded.
B.If Marry sued WGN , seeking damages under the theory of Promissory estoppel, she will not succeeded as there was no direct correspondence between the WGN representatives and Marry .Marry only approached Steeve, who was an employee of WGN and once was his supervisor during her internship. He has no authority to take rrecruitment decision. Moreover Steeve was fired by WGN.He was no more associated with WGN. So he can not make an offer of employment to Marry.So the question of Damages does not arise.
C.Marry cannot sued Holly as well. Because there was no formal contract between Holly and Marry .If there is no contract, the question of Breach of Contract never arises.Hence Marry cannot sued Holly for Breach of Contract.