Friday Frivolity: Offer to Enter into a Unilateral Contract from John Oliver
Offers to enter into unilateral contracts provide frequent blog fodder. Elon Musk offered Wikipedia $1 billion if it would change its name. He did something similar, offering to pay legal fees for people who faced adverse employment decisions for posts on Twitter. James Corden gave us food for thought here. Celebrities offer very high rewards for the return of their lost or stolen pets. Burma Shave offered a trip to Mars. In all of these cases, the offeror seems to have made the offer for non-contractual reasons. They never intended to make good on their offer. They were just trying to make some point unrelated to mutually beneficial transactions.
John Oliver (left) seems to be doing something very different. On his show last week, John Oliver produced a document that he described as “a contract,” in which he, in his personal capacity, offered to pay Justice Clarence Thomas $1 million/year for the rest of his (or John’s ) life if Justice Thomas would agree to step down from the U.S. Supreme Court. To sweeten the deal, John also threw in a luxury motor coach worth $2.4 million. He gave Justice Thomas thirty days to accept the offer. He said repeatedly that his was a serious offer, and I think he meant it.
Unlike other unilateral offers discussed in this space, John Oliver’s offer seems genuine. He seems like he actually wants Justice Thomas to take the offer. Paying Justice Thomas $1 million a year might be painful for John, but I suspect he will make it back by having cemented his reputation for the rest of his life as a legend of political comedy.