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?

For each of the following scenarios, explain what legal doctrine (if any) is involved, and whether J-Lo would still be liable for breach:

(e)At trial, it is revealed that Lopez's team never reviewed and approved the contract; instead, the hoverboards arrived in boxes, and inside one of the boxes was a contract that began, "By opening this box, you agree to the following terms."

(f)At trial, it is revealed that Lopez turned to Sidekick when a different hoverboard supplier fell through at the last minute, and agreed to the deal only because the show was about to open and she had no choice.

(g)At trial, it is revealed that J-Lo agreed to the contract while drunk, and claims she "never would have agreed to something so tacky" if she'd been sober.

Suppose the reason J-Lo breached the contract was because she had a fight with her manager, who changed her passwords on Twitter and Instagram, making it impossible for her to post.

(h)Is J-Lo or Sidekick the efficient bearer of the risk that something like this would prevent J-Lo from posting?Why?

(i)Given your answer, should J-Lo still be liable for breach?

Suppose that immediately after signing the deal with J-Lo, Sidekick launched a million-dollar ad campaign claiming to be "the hoverboard the stars use" - a campaign which would have been successful if accompanied by social media mentions by celebrities, but which flopped when J-Lo stopped tweeting about the company.

Give an argument why this should or should not effect the damages Lopez owes.Should it matter whether the company had consulted with Lopez before launching the campaign?

[1] This is totally true.There were articles about it on CNBC (Lauren Thomas, "Jennifer Lopez is facing a lawsuit over hoverboards," March 31 2017) and several other news sites.