TO: First Year Legal Writing Students FROM: Professors Chris Soper and Brad Clary DATE: August 1, 2017 RE: Fact Hypothetical for Filippi Exercise Barbara Johnson has come into your law office and has told you the following story: Robert Miller (now age 40) and Barbara Johnson (now age 35) met and became friends when they were neighbors in an apartment complex in 2005. Miller started his own technology business in 2007 and became financially successful. He now owns a townhouse along the waterfront in Providence (R.I.), drives a Tesla, and makes $350,000 a year in personal income. Miller in 2010 donated $35,000 to his sister to help her pay for a year of graduate school in far eastern languages for his sister s daughter. Johnson still lives at the apartment complex where she and Miller initially met. Johnson made $45,000 per year at KAT Software Company until she recently resigned. Miller and Johnson go out together three or four times per year on a casual basis. In the fall of 2016, while at dinner in their favorite Providence restaurant, Miller suggested that Johnson attend law school, and said to her, You know, I think you would make a great lawyer. You re smart, and hard-working, and you like to argue. I ll pay for law school for you if you want to go. Johnson, who at the time still owed about $10,000 for undergraduate student loans, did not feel capable of paying for law school on her own. But Miller repeated that he would pay tuition and other expenses associated with law school as they became due if she decided to pursue a law career. We need more good lawyers, Miller said. Johnson did some investigation about law schools and law careers. She took the LSAT and applied to Rhode Island School of Law. Upon receiving her acceptance in the summer of this year (2017), she quit her job at KAT Software Company. It is now time for Johnson to make her fall semester tuition payment to the law school in the amount of $11,000, along with about $2,500 in fees. But Miller is now refusing to make any of the payments. Johnson says that she relied on Miller s promise to pay her education expenses, and has given up the opportunity to earn income through fulltime employment. KAT Software has now hired someone else to replace Johnson in her old job, and the employment opportunities in town are now dismal. Johnson wants to know if she can enforce Miller s alleged promise(s). Give her advice, assuming that Filippi will be the controlling court decision.
TO: First Year Legal Writing Students FROM: Professors Chris Soper and Brad Clary DATE: August 1, 2017 RE: 1st Year Legal Writing Assignment No. 3 We will be analogizing the legal writing process to a road mapping assignment. Much of legal analysis is built around the identification of legal rules, and the application of those rules to facts, in order to resolve problems. Thus, we start by working on how to roadmap a rule itself. In the first assignment, we will focus on setting out, in sequence, each element of a rule one by one, with connectors, so that you (and ultimately an audience) can understand and follow the rule when you and the audience have to match its elements against the facts of a legal problem. Our exercise will try to determine how Filippi v. Filippi defined a cause of action for promissory estoppel. There are multiple possible choices: First, one might pick the language in the middle of page 2 of our excerpt from the opinion (citing the Alix case and quoting from Section 90 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts) A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promissee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance, [and therefore] is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. Second, one might pick the language at the bottom of page 2 of our excerpt (quoting from the East Providence Credit Union case) (1) Was there a promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee? (2) Did the promise induce such action or forbearance? (3) Can injustice be avoided only by enforcement of the promise? Third, one might pick the language at the top of page 3 of our excerpt (citing the Nilavar case) To establish promissory estoppel, there must be: 1. A clear and unambiguous promise; 2. Reasonable and justifiable reliance upon the promise; and 3. Detriment to the promisee, caused by his or her reliance upon the promise. Note also the further language on page 3 of our excerpt (just after the Nilavar cite) that goes on to explain the use of the promissory estoppel doctrine when there is not otherwise a valid formal contract among the relevant parties. As you review the case, ask yourself the following questions: Which definition would you identify as the law in Rhode Island if Filippi were the only opinion upon which you could rely? Does the court expressly hold that a particular definition is the rule? Is one definition more consistent with the overall thrust of the opinion than the other definitions are? How many of the definitions are capable of explaining the result in the case? In analyzing the possible choices, you should parse out the elements of each of the three formal variations side by side, and compare them.
o Are they the same, or are they different? o If they are different, are the differences important? What are the policies served by a broad and narrow version of the promissory estoppel rule? In deciding which definition to use, would it matter to you what the specific facts of your client s problem are? Come prepared to discuss in detail the definition(s) of promissory estoppel in Filippi. Be prepared to formulate what you believe to be the correct promissory estoppel rule, and each of its component elements, from the Filippi case. Be prepared to discuss how each element affects the advice you will give to Barbara Johnson on the facts of the hypothetical scenario we are distributing to you. You will not need to hand in anything in writing for this session.