A few years ago, singer/actress Jennifer Lopez was sued by Sidekick, a company that makes
hoverboards. 1 In preparation for her residency show in Las Vegas, Lopez received 42 free Sidekick
hoverboards for use by dancers in the show. In exchange, Lopez agreed to mention the company once
every three months on Twitter or Instagram. Contrary to the agreement, however, Lopez tweeted just
once about the company, and hasn’t mentioned it since.
Suppose the hoverboards cost Sidekick $1,000 each, or $42,000 total. Sidekick expected four tweets
or Instagrams from Lopez, with the value of each post (in free publicity and increased sales) being
$40,000. If they had not reached this deal with Lopez, Sidekick could instead have struck a similar
deal with Mariah Carey instead, but her tweets would only have been worth $30,000 each.
(a) Suppose that J-Lo had agreed to the contract, received the hoverboards, and then never tweeted
or Instagrammed about Sidekick. Calculate expectation damages, opportunity cost damages,
and reliance damages.
(b) By tweeting just once instead of the four times that were promised, J-Lo partially performed.
When a contract is partially performed, the value of the part that was performed is subtracted
from damages – the promisor gets “credit” for the value that was actually delivered. Calculate
expectation damages and reliance damages, given that J-Lo tweeted once about Sidekick.
(c) Suppose J-Lo claims her tweets are actually worth over $100,000 each, and that by tweeting
once she delivered Sidekick far more value than they had given her. Would this effect
enforceability of the contract under the Bargain Theory of Contracts? Why or why not?
Would this increase or decrease expectation damages?
(d) Suppose J-Lo breached the contract because she simply forgot she had agreed to post about
Sidekick. There are actions she could have taken to make it more likely she would remember.
Under what remedy for breach would she have taken the efficient level of these actions? Why?
Sample Solution