Friday Frivolity: Plaintiff Wins $510,000 Claim After Falling for April Fools Prank

According to the show Personal Injury Court, a radio station offered a $250,000 prize to anyone who would tattoo the stations call letters, KRUD, on their forehead. Mr. Bell did that very thing, purportedly so that he could save his parents from having their home foreclosed on. Mr. Bell sought recovery of the $250,000 in prize money, plus medical expenses (tattoo removal), and pain and suffering, for a total of $510,000. This is probably a pretty good hypo on joke offers. The “judge” in this show weighed the precedents and carefully walked through the doctrine before making his judgment.

Just kidding. This is reality television. The “judge” provided no legal reasoning and just pulled the damages out of thin air. So much the better for class discussion purposes.

There’s a second issue of notice of terms and conditions. The website advertising the offer contained a hyperlink to the contest rules. Had plaintiff clicked on the link, he would have been on notice that the whole thing was an April Fools prank. Plaintiff didn’t click on the link. The “judge” worked through the relevant legal standard: whether a reasonably prudent web browser would be on notice that terms applied to the transaction. 

Just kidding. There was no legal analysis of when hyperlinked terms are binding. But still, all the better for class discussion purposes.

There is also an argument that plaintiff should have been on notice because the radio station advertised the tattoo offer as their “craziest prank ever.” This is all very odd. How is it a prank if you advertise it as a prank? But also, why didn’t plaintiff, who proclaims himself a loyal listener of the station, hear the warnings that it was a prank? To resolve this matter, the “judge” called in a legal expert on warnings and disclaimers in advertising.

Just kidding, he called in a radio prankster so that the prankster can promote his own show.

Before issuing his verdict, the “judge” explained that the issue here is fraud. That came as a surprise to me. There is a talking head after the verdict who explains why the station was engaged in fraud. I find that unlikely, but this is a contracts blog, so what I’m really interested in is whether there was a serious offer and whether plaintiff had a reasonable opporunity to learn the terms of the offer.

To me, one indication that it was not a serious offer for $250,000 is that only one person took it. I make this argument with respect to the Izadi case. Some students find that persuasive, others don’t. But here the standard (if one cares about such things) is whether a reasonably prudent person would be on notice of the terms of the offer. It seems significant that only one person was unaware that this offer, advertised as a prank, was in fact a prank.

But I guess the outcome makes for good television.