FACTS Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporatior planned to produce a musical, Bloomer Girl, and con- tracted with Shirley MacLaine Parker to play the leading female role. According to the contract, Fox was to pay 3 C 13 d1 Parker $53,571.42 per week for fourteen weeks, for a a. 76, . 474 P.2d 689' total of $750,000. Fox later decnded not to produce 89 Cal.Rptr. 737. Bloomer Girl and tried to substitute another contract for the existing con- tract. Under the terms of this second contract, Parker would play the lead- ing role in a Western movie for the same amount of money guaranteed by the first contract. Fox gave Parker one week in which to accept the new contract. Parker filed suit in a California state court against Fox to recover the amount of compensation guaranteed in the first contract because. she maintained, the two roles were not at all equivalent. The Bloomer Gin production was a musical, to be filmed in California, and it could not be compared with a \"western-type\" production that Fox tentatively planned to produce in Australia. When the trial court held for Parker, Fox appealed. Ultimately, the California Supreme Court reviewed the case. Parker v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Supreme Court of California, 1970. ISSUE May Fox's substitute offer of the Western movie contract be used in mitigating the damages ensuing from the breach of the first contract? DECISION No. The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for Parker. REASON The court noted that the \"measure of recovery by a wrongfully discharged employee is the amount of salary agreed upon for the period of service, less the amount which the employer affirmatively proves the employee has earned or with reasonable effort might have earned from other employment. Before projected earnings from other employment opportunities not sought or accepted by the discharged employee can be applied in mitigation, however, the employer must show that the other employment was comparable, or substantially similar, to that of which the employee has been deprived.\" The court held that the two roles were sub- stantially dissimilarthat is, one called for Parker's dancing and acting abilities, and the other was simply an acting role in a Western movie. The court asserted that \"by no stretch of the imagination" could the latter "be considered the equivalent of or substantially similar to the lead in a song- and-dance production." FOR CRITICAL ANALYSISInternational Consideration Many legal systems, including that of France, have no clear requirement that dam- ages must be mitigated. Can justice be better served by requiring that damages be mitigated? If so, how