Essentials of Business Law and the Legal Environment - Case Study Example

Parker vs. Twentieth-Century Fox Corp Introduction Twentieth Century Fox appealed for a summary judgment that granted Parker as a motion picture actor the recovery of compensation stipulated under a written contract. As will be appearing in the paper, the conclusion is that the court, in fact, did correctly rule in plaintiff’s favor. The judgment, thus, should be affirmed. Measuring damages wrongfully owed to the employee, who had been discharged wrongfully, is the amount of salary that the two parties had agreed upon for the employment period minus the amount that the employer can prove the employee could have earned by reasonable effort, or did, in fact, earn, from other employment. Facts The plaintiff is well known as an actress and in the contract signed by the defendant and the plaintiff; at times she is referred to as the artist. According to the contract as of the 6th of August 1965, she was meant to play female lead role in the contemplated production of Bloomer Girl, a movie by the defendant. The contract provided that the plaintiff would be paid a guaranteed minimum compensation of $53,571.42 every week for the fourteen weeks commencing the 23rd of May 1965. The total pay amounted to seventy five thousand dollars. Before May of 1966, the defendant decided against the picture’s production and in a letter dated 4th April 1966 notified the plaintiff of the very same decision telling her that it would not be in compliance with their earlier obligations under the written contract (Blond 25). In the same letter, the defendant, with a professed purpose meant to “avoid any damage” to the plaintiff, instead gave the plaintiff the leading actress role in yet another film. This film was tentatively titled “Big Country, Big Man”, referred to hereafter as “Big Country”. The defendant offered an identical compensation, as they did with thirty-one of the other thirty-four articles or provisions of the original contract. However, Bloomer Girl, as compared to Big Country, was a Western type, dramatic movie, not a musical like the earlier Bloomer Girl. Bloomer Girl was to have been shot in California while Big Country’s location was in Australia. In addition, other certain terms in the contract proffered varied from the contract drawn up initially. The plaintiff was given 1 week to accept the offer, which she failed to do until the offer elapsed. The plaintiff hereby commenced the court case seeking the agreed guaranteed compensation’s recovery (Mann and Barry 45). The complaint set two causes of action forth. Firstly, she wanted monetary compensation due under the previous contract. Secondly, she wanted to sue for damages that resulted from a breach of contract by the defendant. In its answer, the defendant admitted the existence, as well as the validity of the contract, and that the plaintiff complied with all the promises, covenants, and conditions of the contract. She was also ready to comply with the completion of the performance and that she had anticipatorily repudiated and breached the signed contract. However, the defendant denied owing any money to the plaintiff, either under the terms of the contract or resulting from its breach and pleaded an affirmative defense to both causes of the plaintiff’s action. They assert that she willfully failed to mitigate damages, asserting that she turned down, unreasonably, and its offer of a leading role in the film Big Country. The plaintiff moved for summary judgment under the code of civil procedure section 437c. She was granted the motion and summary judgment for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars with additional interest (Mann et al. 72). Issue Whether a secondary offer, of employment was enough to mitigate the damages from the contract’s breach and whether summary judgment should stand. Decision Summary was granted where facts are presented that give rise to an issue that is factually triable and not in dispute. The salary amount agreed upon acts as the measure of recovery minus the amount earned by the employee, or that, which could have been earned from any other employment. Offers by secondary employment to mitigate damages cannot be different or inferior from other primary offers, and thus, the party acted reasonably in declining the secondary offer. The trial court affirmatively granted the plaintiff summary judgment. Reason The defendant gave several reasons for appeal. The familiar rules state that the matter be determined by a court of trial on a summary judgment motion depending on whether facts have been presented that give rise to an issue that is factually triable (Rosett 67). The court itself may not pass on this issue. They also contended that summary judgment is only proper if the declarations or affidavits in the moving party’s support would be enough to sustain a judgment in their favor and the opponent does not show facts, by affidavit, sufficient to present a factually triable issue. The moving party’s affidavits are construed in a strict sense, with doubts raised as to the summary judgment’s propriety resolving against the motion being granted. Such action, the defendant contends, is drastic and should be applied with caution in order for it not to become a substitute for fact determination in the open trial method. They also contended that the moving party could not use the allegations to cure the deficient affidavits, or rely upon her pleadings in the affidavit’s support to oppose the motion. However, they can rely, on the pleadings, to establish various facts that are not contained in the affidavit. The general rule is that recovery measure by an employee discharged wrongfully can be calculated by the amount of salary that was agreed upon for the service’s period, without any amount that can be proven to have been earned by the employee or that the employee might have earned from getting substitute employment. However, before opportunities that the employee did not accept or seek can be applied during mitigation the defendant must show that the substitute employment was substantially similar or comparable to the employment, which they deprived the employee of. Rejection of available employment of an inferior or different kind cannot be used to mitigate damages. The defendant followed up with an appeal that the familiar rules stated that the matter be determined by the court on a summary judgment motion on whether the presented facts give rise to factual issues that can be tried (Rosett 67). The defendant’s sole defense regarding this action that resulted from deliberately breaching their contract was that in rejecting their substitute offer of substitute employment, the plaintiff refused to mitigate damages in a reasonable manner. The defendant raised no issue of reasonableness of the plaintiff’s efforts to get other employment. The sole issue has to do with whether the refusal by the plaintiff of the substitute offer could be used in mitigation. Despite the arguments from the defendant to the contrary, reasonableness has not been proven as an element of an employee who has been wrongfully discharged to reject inferior employment so as not to be charged in mitigation of damages. Applying, in the present case, the foregoing rules to record, it is understandable that the ruling of the trial court was correct and that the plaintiff’s rejection of the defendant’s substitute cannot be applied to mitigate the damages because the Big Country offer was of inferior and different employment (Rosett 67). The fact that Bloomer Girl was to use the plaintiff’s both talents as an actress and dancer, and was to be shot in California, whereas Big Country was a western, shot in Australia demonstrates the two employment’s difference in kind. A female lead role in a western is not to be considered equivalent or similar to the lead role in a dance-and-song musical. The substitute offer was made as a proposal to impair or eliminate the screenplay and director approvals accorded in the original to the plaintiff in the Bloomer Girl contract. Thus, this can be considered as inferior employment (Rosett 67). A judicial notice or expertise is not needed to hold that the infringement or deprivation of an employee’s rights contained in an original contract of employment, converts other employment into inferior employment. Additionally, statements found in the affidavits submitted to the motion of summary judgment, by the defendant in opposition to the plaintiff’s motion of summary judgment, were, not to the effect that Big Country was not an offer of employment inferior or different to that of Bloomer Girl. It merely repeats the defendant’s answer to this complaint in the action, consisting only of conclusion assertions regarding undisputed facts. They do not offer a triable issue of fact that seeks to defeat the motion aimed at summary judgment. Regarding the determination that there was the failure by the defendant to present any factual evidence showing any factual issue existence with respect to the sole defense they had, there was no need to consider further contention by the plaintiff that, for various reasons, the plaintiff was excused from any attempt to mitigate damages. In dissent, Judge Sullivan contended that the majority distinguished between the two films incorrectly and that, in fact, the female lead role should qualify in any movie as a substitute performance (Rosett 67). He stated that the basic question in the case was whether the plaintiff had acted in a reasonable manner when rejecting the offer from the defendant of an alternative employment. The answer should depend on whether the offer for Big Country was an offer for work substantially similar to the former offer of employment as the lead role in Bloomer Girl, or consequently from a project that was inferior or different in kind. This, to his mind, was a factual issue that the trial court was not supposed to determine on a summary judgment motion. Because the majority not only repeated the error but compounded it via application of the rules that govern mitigation of damages in the employee-employer context in a fashion that he found misleading, he chose to respectfully dissent. Conclusion In Parker vs. Twentieth Century Fox, the plaintiff contended that the offer was different and inferior in a significant manner to that held in the initial contract. The defendant contended that the difference between Bloomer Girl’s contract and the secondary offer were minimal and that a jury should decide on the substantial similarity or difference. Wrongfully discharged employees are entitled to lost salary but need to mitigate damages via seeking alternative employment. The employee, however, is not required to accept inferior or different employment. Works Cited Blond, Neil. Contracts. New York : Aspen Publishers, 2007. Print. Mann, Richard, and Barry, Roberts. Essentials of Business Law and the Legal Environment. Mason : South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Mann, Richard, Barry, Roberts, and Len, Smith. Smith & Roberson's Business Law. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Rosett, Arthur. Contracts: Keyed to Rosett and Bussel's Contract Law and its Application. New York : Aspen Publishers, 2010. Print. Read More