Writer’s choice

This is your Life Skills Project Research Assignment. This assignment is worth 25% of your Life Skills Project portion of your final grade (i.e. 5% of your final class grade).

You are a legal assistant for the attorney of the FUN Company. For this assignment you must conduct research and find three (3) court opinions (i.e. cases that have been previously decided by the court) that are precedent (i.e. have similar facts and issues of law) to the case below. To receive credit for this assignment, you must provide the case title and citation of each of the three (3) cases you find. You may use Google Scholar in order to conduct your research.

The Church of Stranger Things vs. FUN Company: Three months ago the CEO for FUN Company sent a letter to the Pastor for the Church of Stranger Things pledging a $3,000,000.00 donation to the Church. Upon receipt of this news, the Pastor contacted FUN’s CEO who re-assured the Pastor that the Church would be receiving a check for this amount within the ensuing four to six weeks. The Pastor, who for several years had wanted to expand the Church in order to increase its congregation, immediately hired an architect and paid him $400,000.00 to design the new ambitious project. The Pastor was in love with the architect’s design, so he quickly hired a general contractor for $750,000.00 to start the building process. In addition to the $750,000.00 for the labor, the Pastor paid another 1,100,000.00 for the tools and materials needed for the project. Five weeks after receiving the letter and first speaking to FUN’s CEO on the phone, the bishop called FUN because he was nervous about the fact that he had not received the check and he had already incurred such significant expenses. Note that the only reason the Pastor engaged in this ambitious construction project was because of the extra money he was counting on getting from FUN since the Church’s structure did not need it to continue its regular operations. The CEO at that point told the Pastor that soon after committing to donate the money, FUN’s finances started going terribly wrong and as such at this point, they were not able to make a donation to the church. The Pastor is now demanding that FUN still true to its word and give the church the donation.

This is your third life skills assignment. For this assignment you will continue to work with the case of The Church of Stranger Things v. The FUN Company, introduced in the first life skills assignment. Using the research you previously conducted and the cases you found, write a one to two page memorandum discussing the legal issues and predicting the likely outcome of the The Church of Stranger Things v. The FUN Company. Feel free to conduct additional research if necessary. In order to receive full credit you must also prepare a comprehensive powerpoint presentation summarizing the findings of your memos.

Paraphrasing

Name of Student

Institutional Affiliation

Paraphrasing

Following the need of the church to make some modifications to improve its appearance, it received a promise of donation. The church perceived the contributions as an efficient way of facilitating the needed improvement. As a result of the belief in the promise of contribution, the church contracted the architected and the contractor to carry out the modifications and further made the down payments. To confirm the donation, the bishop of the church contacted the CEO of the ABCD company that promised the donation, and the CEO assured the bishop that the church would donate in a few days. Following the confirmation from the CEO, the bishop made payments to the architecture and the contractor. Few days after the first call, the bishop called the CEO of the ABCD company to enquire about specifications regarding when to expect the recipient of the donations. The company, however, explained that as a result of the adverse economic conditions that it faced at the moment, it would not be able to make the donations at the promised time.

The bishop of Narnia church believed in the donation promise made by the company, in the case that the bishop took up legal actions against the company, the bishop would win the lawsuit against the company. According to Ramaseshan (2016), under the law, the legal system could enforce promises of donations to charity through the doctrine of promissory estoppel. The issue is considered a matter of public policy. Consequently, it is shown consideration or detrimental reliance.

In some circumstances, the court could hold a divergent opinion, suggesting that donations should no be compulsory. This opinion could indicate that following a promise to charity, the promising company or individual is not legally bound or mandated to donate to charity (Meng, 2016). In most circumstances, the courts are likely to favor the charities. As a result of the pledge, the charities are likely to take some actions. The court sides with the charities as, in most cases, the activities are undertaken are irreversible, even in the case that the donors fail to meet their obligations. through the pledge of there a donation, there is presumed to be a contract. As a contract is legally binding, the pledge should be honored (Collins et al. 2017). Failure to honor a pledge equals the breakage of the law.

The court could refer similar cases to provide favorable judgments for the company in passing the judgment. In such scenarios, the court would aim to determine instances where the court failed to enforce promissory estoppel. The move of the court would be to support the fact that even though the company made a promise to offer a donation to Narnia church, the promise could not be fulfilled at the moment as the company faced some unpredicted adverse impacts. The court would judge that even though the company made the promise to donate and the church had engaged in irreversible initiatives with the promise of the donation, the company would not be compelled to uphold its pledge.

Although the court could seek to make its judgment in favor of the church, with a good lawyer, the company could win the case. With the assistance of the lawyer, the company could attempt not to pay as much money as the economic conditions of the company were adversely affected.  The company, through the lawyer, could argue that they failed to fulfill the promise they made as a result of the adverse economic conditions that it faced at the time.

References

Collins, H., Gómez, F., Grundmann, S., Hesselink, M. W., Watt, H. M., & Roppo, V. (2017). European Review of Contract Law.

Meng, Z. (2016). Understanding the core essence of the Charity Law. China Journal of Social Work, 9(2), 184-190.

Ramaseshan, V. (2016). 12_Promissory Estoppel and State Liabilty.