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"Said". Good luck with "said" in the court. Movie was bad nevertheless.

by sto_hristo 5y ago

CydeWeys 5y ago
It's in an email. Why would that be problematic for court?
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  Because it's not a contract. If emails were contracts, every email that comes later would supersede it. You can't run things that way. If you agree to it, put it in a contract. But if you wanted to allow emails as contracts, then the last email on a subject would always be the final contract for instance. It would be too unfair and difficult to sort out. For instance, was the highlighted email the last email on the subject? If not, do those subsequent emails also represent contracts? What was in the last email? The game could go on and on. Whereas with a properly executed contract, everyone knows what everyone signed. Now it can influence legal proceedings, but only insofar as it illustrates where a negotiation was going. And again, subsequent emails would point to where those negotiations landed in the end.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    In some jurisdictions, courts use a "four corners of the document" test, and nothing outside of the document can be used to interpret the meaning of the contract. Other jurisdictions allow extrinsic evidence (like this email) to help interpret the language of the contract. We would need to know what the governing jurisdiction is for this contract in order to know how much an outside email would matter in court. But in the court of public opinion (which matters somewhat for famous people and well-known companies), these legal technicalities won't matter. The headline will be that a Marvel exec said that they would need to revisit the compensation if they didn't do a standard theatrical release.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Jtsummers 5y ago
"said" referring to something written in this case, in an email. It's not hearsay (if that's what you're implying) but a statement by someone with some degree of authority/responsibility. This can actually become important in legal proceedings. It's one reason to be careful with what people say in meetings or write in communications with customers or others, as it can become legally binding if they're perceived to have sufficient authority/responsibility to back the statement.
- sto_hristo 5y ago
  If naked promises are taken seriously and suddenly recognized by courts, everything will burst in flames. This is simply absurd.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    I didn't say naked promises, where I've seen this have a real world consequence was when the speaker seemed to have authority they did not, or made a statement that conveyed an intent they did not mean. Like "We're ready to start on the project" being taken by a contractor to mean, "Get dev work started today" and then billing the work when the speaker wasn't actually authorizing the start at that time. It's about whether there's a potential good faith misunderstanding of the statement. The contractor didn't take the statement and run with it to bill hours they shouldn't have billed, they legitimately took the statement to be the go ahead to get started and billed accordingly.
    - sto_hristo 5y ago
      But that doesn't make for a good contractor now, does it? If they're so naive to run after every stick thrown at them and lose on that, no real court should help them. That is the whole reason for the "invention" of contracts, where everything is finalized, official, set in stone, and unbreakable. Problem with Scarlet is that in no way she could have foreseen 2020 and didn't think any of it. Now that stuff happened, she's just angry at her misfortune and is reaching for straws. It's unfortunate.

"Said". Good luck with "said" in the court. Movie was bad nevertheless.

CydeWeys 5y ago

It's in an email. Why would that be problematic for court?

bilbo0s 5y ago
Because it's not a contract. If emails were contracts, every email that comes later would supersede it. You can't run things that way. If you agree to it, put it in a contract. But if you wanted to allow emails as contracts, then the last email on a subject would always be the final contract for instance. It would be too unfair and difficult to sort out. For instance, was the highlighted email the last email on the subject? If not, do those subsequent emails also represent contracts? What was in the last email? The game could go on and on. Whereas with a properly executed contract, everyone knows what everyone signed. Now it can influence legal proceedings, but only insofar as it illustrates where a negotiation was going. And again, subsequent emails would point to where those negotiations landed in the end.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  In some jurisdictions, courts use a "four corners of the document" test, and nothing outside of the document can be used to interpret the meaning of the contract. Other jurisdictions allow extrinsic evidence (like this email) to help interpret the language of the contract. We would need to know what the governing jurisdiction is for this contract in order to know how much an outside email would matter in court. But in the court of public opinion (which matters somewhat for famous people and well-known companies), these legal technicalities won't matter. The headline will be that a Marvel exec said that they would need to revisit the compensation if they didn't do a standard theatrical release.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Jtsummers 5y ago

"said" referring to something written in this case, in an email. It's not hearsay (if that's what you're implying) but a statement by someone with some degree of authority/responsibility. This can actually become important in legal proceedings. It's one reason to be careful with what people say in meetings or write in communications with customers or others, as it can become legally binding if they're perceived to have sufficient authority/responsibility to back the statement.

sto_hristo 5y ago
If naked promises are taken seriously and suddenly recognized by courts, everything will burst in flames. This is simply absurd.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  I didn't say naked promises, where I've seen this have a real world consequence was when the speaker seemed to have authority they did not, or made a statement that conveyed an intent they did not mean. Like "We're ready to start on the project" being taken by a contractor to mean, "Get dev work started today" and then billing the work when the speaker wasn't actually authorizing the start at that time. It's about whether there's a potential good faith misunderstanding of the statement. The contractor didn't take the statement and run with it to bill hours they shouldn't have billed, they legitimately took the statement to be the go ahead to get started and billed accordingly.
  - sto_hristo 5y ago
    But that doesn't make for a good contractor now, does it? If they're so naive to run after every stick thrown at them and lose on that, no real court should help them. That is the whole reason for the "invention" of contracts, where everything is finalized, official, set in stone, and unbreakable. Problem with Scarlet is that in no way she could have foreseen 2020 and didn't think any of it. Now that stuff happened, she's just angry at her misfortune and is reaching for straws. It's unfortunate.