Outside of a Dog: Stout, Rex: (16) Three Doors to Death

Nathan Lundblad

Nathan Lundblad wrote on July 23, 2002 at 4:59 PM:

So I'm not sure I understand completely, here: Sandra got to keep the house and the orchids, even though the written will conflicted with an oral promise?

Was the oral promise granted more weight because Sandra had clearly done actions that she would not have done had the promise not existed?

Kate

Kate wrote on July 23, 2002 at 7:10 PM:

Yup--promissory estoppel means basically that even though you don't have a valid contract [*], you can still get something. Loosely, you need to have been promised something that could reasonably be expected to cause you to do something serious, and then you actually did the something. It would be unfair for the person making the promise to say--whoops, sorry, I lied, tough luck. Sometimes you only get fair value of services or enough to keep the other person from being unjustly enriched; but here, it's hard to put a value on what Sandra did (I elided some of the details), so the court will go for specific performance, that is, enforce precisely what Mildred promised.

[*] There's no valid contract because contracts to make a will ("I, M, promise to leave S everything") have to be in writing. That's the reference to the Statute of Frauds.

Nathan Lundblad

Nathan Lundblad wrote on July 23, 2002 at 8:19 PM:

I wish I got to use words like estoppel on a daily basis.

(Thanks. It seems there's a great con in this idea, somehow, waiting to be found...)

Trent

Trent wrote on July 24, 2002 at 2:54 PM:

Let's hear it for detrimental reliance!

Just curious, was this a Wills question (sounds like) or a Contracts question (could be)?

Kate

Kate wrote on July 24, 2002 at 8:43 PM:

Nathan--But you get to play with lasers on a daily basis... And yeah, you could probably get a con out of it, but remember that you have to prove the existence of the promise, too, and that can be tricky. For instance, in some states, there are rules [quaintly known as "Dead Man Statutes"] about testifying about your interactions with dead people, for just that reason. Sandra's probably okay; putting NY's Dead Man Statute aside (it's not entirely clear to me that it would apply here, for fiddly reasons that you all don't care about), there's no reason that she would have moved in with her aunt unless her aunt had made this promise, since they weren't apparently close. And the whole point of promissory estoppel is that it's to keep unfairness at bay, which I'm sure makes the courts sensitive to the possibility of scams. It's probably easier to convince someone to make a will in your favor, frankly.

Trent--it was a contracts question; Sandra wasn't trying to contest the will.

Anyway, how about that Nero Wolfe?

Mahoney

Mahoney wrote on July 25, 2002 at 9:58 PM:

>>>We are also given
Archie's age: 32 in 1947; that would make him sixty in the last book, A Family Affair, published in 1975. He's a very
sprightly sexagenarian . . .

*g* In "A Family Affair," Archie at one point comments that he's starting to "feel [his] age." Made me laugh; I love the tongue-in-cheek mentions of his and Wolfe's continued youth. And I get a huge kick out of the way "A Right to Die" mischievously acts as if there's nothing strange whatsoever about the fact that their visitor has aged almost 40 years but they haven't....

Kate

Kate wrote on July 25, 2002 at 10:38 PM:

Correcting you to be polite--it's actually more like 26 years from Too Many Cooks to A Right to Die, but yes, in some ways that's one of the most surreal moments in the series.

The TV series is even stranger, to me, in this regard. Frankly, when we first started watching the show, I expected them to put them all in a generic 1950s setting and avoid the stories set in specific periods, to avoid this problem. I mean, it's one thing to read stories set in WWII and the '60s, and another to see Archie in uniform one episode and in dubious pastel suits (not to mention Lily Rowan in a beehive!) in another, while none of them look a day older...

Rich

Rich wrote on July 28, 2002 at 1:50 PM:

Wow, Kate.

It's not everday that someone manages to weave a practice bar exam question into a booklog and then have it generate several volleys of comments. All I know is that reading that question made my eyes glaze over and made me retract into a fetal position, reminding me of exactly how much you are forced to digest for the bar, only to then have it slip completely from your mind.

(Statute of Frauds... I know I *used* to know what the heck that was.....)

p.s. Wipe the floor with the bar examiners this week. Good luck.

Kate

Kate wrote on July 29, 2002 at 8:34 PM:

Thanks, Rich. Sorry to make your eyes glaze over--I guess contracts aren't a real focus of life as a prosecuting attorney...

I'm half tempted to start writing up, on spoiler-marked pages, just what's wrong with legal things in books I read, the way Findlaw does for TV shows. However, I suspect it might end up being too much work, especially with things like the Nero Wolfe books where the law has undoubtedly changed a lot since then.

Anyway. One more day of studying, silly kung fu movie tonight, and then tomorrow...

Michael

Michael wrote on August 5, 2002 at 5:08 PM:

Interesting -- so what's to prevent me from going to the courts and claiming that I was made promises when I wasn't, to try and get things?

Haven't had much reading time lately, but Nicole and I are becoming fans of the A&E show....

Kate

Kate wrote on August 5, 2002 at 5:51 PM:

Well, you have to prove it.

Someone on rec.arts.sf.fandom is reporting that there's reasonably good confirmation that A&E is planning not to produce any more new episodes, which I hope turns out not to be the case. We watched a taped copy of The Silent Speaker one of the nights before the bar and I almost hurt myself laughing--they don't always nail it (and they didn't quite get right the last scene), but when they're on, they're on.