Question

Anneka, from Stockton, works at a law firm in San Francisco as an associate attorney. Each year the lawyers put on a college basketball challenge whereby participants pay $100 to enter the NCAA basketball pool. The game requires that contestants pick the projected winners of basketball games throughout the NCAA basketball tournament, held each March. In other words, if Cal plays Kentucky, they pick one of the teams (hopefully Cal) and they get points for each correct pick. The winner of the contest is the person with the most points. The winner also gets most of the money and bragging rights. Some of the entry fee ($50) is held back from each entry to pay for a dinner that all of the contestants are invited to attend.  

In 2018, the tournament was organized by Jim Slick - another attorney in the firm. Mr. Slick lives in Oakland. 100 people participate in the pool, meaning they have $5000 for the winner and $5000 for dinner. Included in the dinner is a secondary contest that is not announced. The person who sits in the correct chair (with a secret envelope attached to the bottom) wins a 65 inch flat screen T.V.  

Anneka is a basketball junkie. She follows college sports all year. As a result, she has a great series of basketball picks and wins the pool At dinner, she also sits in the chair with the envelope. She does not know about the TV until the everyone is told to look under their chairs.  

After dinner, she goes to collect her winnings and the TV, but Slick is already gone from dinner. She goes to his office at work the next Monday, only to discover that he's left the firm. She calls his home number and he tells her that the overhead for the tournament and dinner actually left them with no money to pay the winners. He also says, he liked the T.V. so much that he decided to keep it.

Law suits are filed. Who should sue and where should suit be filed? What are the grounds for the suits and the potential damages available? What defenses may be raised? Who will win? Identify the issues and explain all sides.

Answer 1

All the employees should file a law suit as they paid for the tournament and dinner. It's not as if the owner of the firm paid for it himself. It's okay if he was not able to pay the winners. He could always pay in tranches in future, the play was just for fun anyways, but he shouldn't promise that a person gets a TV and then he decides to keep it, he is foregoing the integrity of the firm and the tournament. The suit should be filed in San Francisco as all the employees are there.

Ground is everything mentioned above, as everyone contributed the money for a specific purpose. They could have invested it somewhere else.

The tournament head and people who arranged everything could be the defense's involved as to the commitment which they made with the employer.

Most probably the employees will win as they have a solid ground. They gave money for a particular cause and the winner never ever received it.