Law Students

An Experienced Lawyer Re-learns Contracts

By Pete

One of the more straight-forward distinctions in contract law is the difference between bilateral and unilateral contracts. Simplified, in a bilateral contract, both parties make promises. In a unilateral contract, only one party does. A bilateral contract is what most people think of when the word is brought to mind: John promises to give Sally his couch, Sally promises to give him $100 in return. Easy. A unilateral is a slightly different thing. Think of reward fliers: “Lost Cat, $100 reward”. In that case, the cat’s owner is promising to give $100 to the person who returns her cat. Nobody is promising, in return, to find her cat, however.

It becomes more complicated when you start talking about the validity and enforceability of the contracts, but that’s the basic idea. This is all background, however, for an amusing story about what seems like a blustery trial lawyer who got caught with his mouth writing checks that he doesn’t want to cash:

Attorney James Cheney Mason put it out there on “Dateline NBC.” When Nelson Serrano was convicted of killing four people in Bartow, Fla., in 1997, the prosecution’s case had hinged on a 28-minute window. In that amount of time, Serrano is said to have gotten off an airplane at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and made it to a La Quinta Inn, three miles away, where he appeared on security camera footage.

“I challenge anybody to show me. I’ll pay them a million dollars if they can do it,” Mason said during an interview with “Dateline NBC” in 2006 after a jury?s finding that his client maneuvered his way through the world’s busiest airport and made it to a motel off I-85 in under 30 minutes.

Read the whole article, but the short version of the story is that a law student took him up on his offer, did it, and now wants the $1 million reward that was promised. The defense attorney doesn’t want to pay.

The primary argument the defense attorney will probably rely on is the suggestion that nobody could have taken the offer seriously. I don’t buy that for a couple of reasons.

First, we’re talking about an attorney that goes on Dateline to talk about his client’s trial. He’s probably got the money to spend. Secondly, you might think “now, why would he pay someone to prove his client could’ve done it?” The better question is this one: if nobody had come forward to meet the challenge, can’t you imagine that being used? “I offered a million dollars on national TV and not a single person was able to make it happen.”

I’ll be honest, I’m also a little off-put by the fact that the defense attorney seems unnecessarily hostile as he’s protrayed by the AJC, but I’m a fan of holding people to their word, and if you’re going to promise a bunch of money for some sort of performance, you need to pay up when someone comes through.

Full post as published by PeteHoliday.com on July 11, 2010 (boomark / email).