Comments on: Extreme Makeover, Legal Edition

By: markm

markm — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:36:00 +0000

Or was the house “delivered” to the wrong party?

By: David Nieporent

David Nieporent — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:53:06 +0000

Law dude: the kids may well be third party beneficiaries. But this lawsuit doesn't fit the fact pattern of a third party beneficiary lawsuit. If ABC had failed to deliver the home to the couple, then the kids could make a claim against ABC under that theory. But here, the allegation is that the couple did something wrong after ABC performed.

By: Law dude

Law dude — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:15:25 +0000

I would make it a third party beneficiary story. Anyone who gives money to parents of a crippled kid, and then find out the parents took the money and blew it on a trip to Las Vegas usually flips out because they intended the money to be used for the kid’s welfare. In cases like that (it happens often enough) they have been known to demand their money back. Which is why we give the charitable trusts that are controlled by the parents but for whom the beneficiary is the crip in question. Keeps ’em honest.

Here the movie company exploited the kids to get press for their “good deed” episode, and obviously would not have given it to the grownups if they knew they were going to stiff the kids.

On the other hand,would the parents have let their original home be “extreme makeovered” if the orfinks were going to added as co-owners to the deed? I think not.

Good case, not at all one-sided. Make a good contracts/torts class question with a little more facts like detrimental reliance, promissory estoppel, etc.

By: wavemaker

wavemaker — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 14:18:36 +0000

A poignant example of the old saying,

“No good deed goes unpunished.”