8 ms·

The article says his suit was rejected because ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything. That seems more or less false. False advertising is explicitly aga

The article says his suit was rejected because ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything. That seems more or less false. False advertising is explicitly against the law. I don't understand why a ruling would be made implying that false advertising is ok. At very least, it seems Pepsi should have been fined for that.

goodcanadian 5y ago
From memory, my understanding is that it did not obligate Pepsi because it was obviously* a joke. *obvious to any reasonable person.
- brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
  "Obvious to any reasonable person" is so vague. What happens when Poe's law is reached? Half the people will scream obvious while the other half scream obviously not! Also, the reasonable person would have to be raised and steeped in the culture. why would someone from another country, who doesn't understand US norms, be considered unreasonable? Pepsi is a large corporation that has been in posetion of USSR military gear (vague because I don't exactly remember what atm). Why wouldn't they be able to give a jet away? They are big enough, have possessed similar items, and run contests all the time. Seems legit to me (but I also haven't seen the ad).
  - lkbm 5y ago
    Here's the ad in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdackF2H7Qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdackF2H7Qc
    - brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
      Thanks! Definitely Poe's law. They show what seem like awards with point values and include a jet with a point value. The jet landing at school seems like a joke, but not the jet itself, IMHO. Sure it's an outlandish prize, but they gave it a point value along with others. Maybe the way the case was brought, it fell apart, but that's gotta be false advertizing.
      - SkittyDog 5y ago
        I'd like to pose a serious question to you, which might run the risk of offending you--so fair warning, there. I understand the fact that you believe your opinion is reasonable... It sounds like you also understand that the world broadly disagrees with you. A federal judge (Kimba Wood, no less!) disagreed with you... Since there was no appeal, I'd gather that the guy couldn't find funds to continue his suit--so his backers seem to have disagreed, too. Is there a reason why you're more willing to believe in the idea that "All these people, including experienced legal minds, must be wrong", rather than "My own layman's intuition about the law must wrong"? I'm asking because I genuinely don't understand why you'd want to continue backing your POV in the face of evidence to the contrary. I may have missed something, and I'm curious what your thought process looks like.
        freeopinion 5y ago
        I know this just drags out the point--sorry for that--but your reasoning is based on a false statement. You reason that "Since there was no appeal...", but in point of fact, there was an appeal. Consider this my pedantic contribution to a discussion about a pedantic case.
        SkittyDog 5y ago
        You got me there, yep... So that means a Federal appellate court also disagreed? Not sure what what stage of the appeal process he got to, so I dunno if that strengthens the argument or what.
        billytetrud 5y ago
        There's a difference between what is legal and what is right. What is actually legal is muddled in stacks of overriding law and legal precedent that no "reasonable person" could every really know completely. I would bet you that more than 30% of the country wouldn't have seen that and thought "oh that's obviously a joke".
  - goodcanadian 5y ago
    I am not an expert on U.S. law, so I can't answer in detail, but you better believe that formal standards to define that have been developed. I have heard of polling being done to determine what the average "reasonable person" thinks. Remember, this is not what any individual random person thinks, but what people in general are likely to think, so Poe's law doesn't really apply.
- paulcole 5y ago
  You don’t need to rely on your memory here. There’s an article with details at your fingertips!
systemvoltage 5y ago
Further down in the article, it gives 3 reasons why the court rejected it. One of which was reasonable characterization that anyone would make that it was a joke.
- mattmanser 5y ago
  The reasons, for those interested but not going to read it, the final one seems a slam dunk too: Advertisements are generally not considered offers in contract law: “Ads for the sale of goods (TV, radio, newspaper, newsletter)… are merely the requests to offer or negotiate” and an advertiser must accept an offer from a customer for it to be legally formed. The ad was obviously a joke: An “ordinary, reasonable person” would conclude that a soft drink company would not give away a fighter plane as part of a promotion. An enforceable contract requires both parties’ signatures: Under existing law, any contract for the sale of goods worth $500+ must be evidenced by writing; Pepsi did not sign anything.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    Here's the thing: did Pepsi come through on the other things advertised in that commercial? If they sent a leather jacket for 1450 points and a mountain bike for 3500, then it seems to me that it is against the public interest to allow a company to make such offers and then rescind them arbitrarily. That's why we get small print saying things like "screens are simulated" and "not actual size" and "while supplies last" or "at participating stores only" -- because without those disclaimers, we should be able to rely on statements about prices, promotions and availability.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      > That's why we get small print saying things like "screens are simulated" and "not actual size" and "while supplies last" or "at participating stores only" -- because without those disclaimers, we should be able to rely on statements about prices, promotions and availability. If they'd advertise a can for 99ct and make a can look like 1l when it is in fact only 0.5l you could reasonably say that one could've expected 1l cans - these cans exist and this would not be out of the ordinary, even though a bit cheaper than usual. If the can in the advertisement would be the size of a truck, it would be hard to argue that you really thought you would get that for 99ct. If they offer something that is a) very rare, b) insanely expensive and c) not allowed to be owned by a private person, I find it very hard to argue that one could reasonably think this is an actual offer. I agree with you that we should not give companies endless leeway to deceive customers, but let's not discard common sense.
vmception 5y ago
he lost on appeal and moved to alaska working in public service. to me that is considered failure.
bagacrap 5y ago
I think it would constitute fake advertising if they accepted his money but failed to uphold their end of the bargain by giving him a functional jet. It's not fake advertising if Ford advertises a truck for $25k but then fails to sell one to you because, for example, they ran out of chips and couldn't make enough trucks.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  But it would be false advertising if Ford said you could buy a truck for $5k, but told you they actually cost $25k when you showed up to buy it
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    It's not entirely unusual for automobile models to be in high enough demand that they are sold at higher than the advertised price (MSRP).
  - Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
    Nah, not really. Automobile pricing is closer to traditional K offer/acceptance laws. Additionally no car dealer would advertise such a deal without including a clause stating the price is subject to (usually many) conditions and could change at any time. False advertising is a rather narrow doctrine, one that by necessity has to interact with standard contract law. Cases where false advertising involves prices usually include issues like hidden fees (telecoms signing you up for X a month but then your bill includes Y fees that weren't disclosed to you). More commonly, false advertising concerns things like consumer deception - claims that something is "clinically proven" when it actually isn't, for instance. In general, in contract law, if the changed price is communicated to you before you have accepted the offer, then there's no issue. There are literally hundreds of years of precedent going back to the English common law describing what does and does not constitute an offer and what does and doesn't constitute acceptance of an offer.
    - tzs 5y ago
      If they don't actually have any $5k trucks but claim they do in order to lure people in to try to sell them $25k trucks that would be a bait and switch that would run afoul of the law in several states. The FTC would probably also have something to say.
bryan0 5y ago
> Leonard filed suit, claiming that Pepsi’s ad had constituted as a binding offer. The article says the judge ruled it was not a binding offer for 3 reasons: 1. Advertisements are generally not considered offers in contract law. 2. The ad was obviously a joke. 3. An enforceable contract requires both parties’ signatures.
- kolinko 5y ago
  Fun fact ad 3 - in some countries (Poland) there is a concept in law of a public promise. If a corporation publicly promises something (a competition usually), they are obliged to act upon it, even if there were no signatures on the other side.
  - garaetjjte 5y ago
    "Above advertisement does not constitute offer as meant by the article 66 of Civil Code" :)
    - ptsneves 5y ago
      Written everywhere in otomoto. Lol never understood what that pesky caveat was there for.
    - pythonaut_16 5y ago
      The legal form of "but I had my fingers crossed so it doesn't count"
  - jimnotgym 5y ago
    In England and Wales (Scotland has its own legal system) there is very famous case law that says that an offer can be made to the world at large (through an advert in this case). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Bal... Which may seem to apply, but this was an offer to add a guarantee to the terms. Whereas merely advertising a price is just an invitation for the buyer to make you an offer. Here is an almost as famous case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Society_of_GB_v_Boots_Cash_Chemists_(Southern)_Ltd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Society_of_GB... I am not surprised our fellow common law jurisdictions like the US reached the same conclusion. The case law that makes up English civil law, especially the early stuff is really fascinating stuff to me. IANAL but understanding the contact law from these cases has won me several disputes in my professional life.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> That seems more or less false. False advertising is explicitly against the law. That’s not the point that was argued, though. An advertisement doesn’t oblige the advertise to engage in a specific transaction with a customer. This isn’t uncommon. If you see a house advertised for sale at $500,000, the owners aren’t obligated to sell you the house for $500,000 or even to sell the house at any price. An advertisement alone isn’t a legally binding offer to complete a transaction. False advertising also requires an intent to deceive or mislead, or at least evidence that the advertiser behaved recklessly in the advertisement. The advertisement is obviously a joke and they wouldn’t be able to find anyone to testify that that PepsiCo actually thought they would be selling a Harrier jet, so proving intent to mislead or reckless behavior would be nearly impossible when the entire premise was a joke. Regardless, I’m inclined to believe the judge who presided over this case and did the work of reading through all of the legal precedent.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  I mean, we can certainly believe the Judge applied the law correctly, but also disagree that the law should be this way.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    You should read the opinion. Ruling otherwise would essentially eliminate obvious jokes from advertising, and the opinion makes a good case for just how obvious the joke was.
  - dvt 5y ago
    > I mean, we can certainly believe the Judge applied the law correctly, but also disagree that the law should be this way. I'm not sure what issue you see with the law here. It seems to both be written and applied quite well. The Pepsi ad isn't really misleading or reckless, and obviously just a bit of fun hyperbole.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    No reasonable person can disagree with the legal principle at issue. You are suggesting that if you place an ad on, e.g., Facebook marketplace, you should be legally obligated to engage in the transaction with the first person to accept your asking price. Your position is indisputably absurd.
ezekiel68 5y ago
I'm absolutely not picking on no one when I point out this comment is yet another example of the hazards of applying apparent common sense to matters of law. One doesn't get any extra consideration from a judge for pointing out what seems false. Also, the article makes clear that plaintiff chose a legal strategy closer to contract breach than false advertising.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  Perhaps that was a misake on the plaintiffs part. But the ruling does seem to contradict legal precedent around bait-and-switch advertising. So its still a bit perplexing.
duxup 5y ago
It was rejected on multiple points, one of them being that nobody reasonably would think a soft drink company was going to give them a fighter jet. I'm inclined to be more protective about false advertising and all... but not the the point of absurdity where we demand they provide someone a fighter jet... or $33m for $700,000 as compensation. Whatever we might feel about advertising, that result would be absurd and solve nothing.
acheron 5y ago
"Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the movie, The Neverending Story!" - https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Lionel_Hutz https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Lionel_Hutz
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything Great to know! Yet another reason not to feel even a little bit bad when I block them.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The article says his suit was rejected because ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything. This is simply wrong. It was rejected because the particular ad did not (for a variety of reasons cited in the ruling) make an offer that was open to be accepted by the action by which he purported to accept the purported offer, so there was no contract [0], nor was it legally fraud, since Pepsi never cashed the check. Ads, more generally, may or may not create offers open to acceptance by action. > False advertising is explicitly against the law False advertising is different than advertising creating a forward obligations; an advertisement is false or not when presented. OTOH, the puffery reasoning applied in the fraud claim in the Harrier case would also apply to a false advertising claim. [0] while the thing its cited for is puffery, its worth noting that, even if puffery was off the table, the purported subject matter of the agreement would have required a written agreement signed by the parties under the Statute of Frauds to form a valid contract, and obviously no such written agreement existed.
- billytetrud 5y ago
  > Pepsi never cashed the check. So maybe if the guy had actually first obtained all the point, then demanded the jet, the suit might have come out differently? > cited for is puffery I'm no expert on puffery, but if the definition on wikipedia is correct, it doesn't seem like its puffery because it doesn't express "subjective views" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery . Offering a jet for points is a pretty objective statement. > the purported subject matter of the agreement would have required a written agreement signed by the parties Perhaps that's what would be needed for this to be fraud, but a contract certainly wouldn't be necessary to accuse them of bait-and-switch.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Perhaps that's what would be needed for this to be fraud, No, a valid contract was a requirement of the breach of contract claim, not the fraud claim. > but a contract certainly wouldn't be necessary to accuse them of bait-and-switch. Bait-and-switch isn't a legal cause of action. The usual cause of action for things described as bait and switch is either breach of contract (if there was an agreement) or fraud (if the bait-and-switcher got something of value from the other party out of it). Both were raised in this case, and both failed.

goodcanadian 5y ago

From memory, my understanding is that it did not obligate Pepsi because it was obviously* a joke. *obvious to any reasonable person.

brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
"Obvious to any reasonable person" is so vague. What happens when Poe's law is reached? Half the people will scream obvious while the other half scream obviously not! Also, the reasonable person would have to be raised and steeped in the culture. why would someone from another country, who doesn't understand US norms, be considered unreasonable? Pepsi is a large corporation that has been in posetion of USSR military gear (vague because I don't exactly remember what atm). Why wouldn't they be able to give a jet away? They are big enough, have possessed similar items, and run contests all the time. Seems legit to me (but I also haven't seen the ad).
- lkbm 5y ago
  Here's the ad in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdackF2H7Qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdackF2H7Qc
  - brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
    Thanks! Definitely Poe's law. They show what seem like awards with point values and include a jet with a point value. The jet landing at school seems like a joke, but not the jet itself, IMHO. Sure it's an outlandish prize, but they gave it a point value along with others. Maybe the way the case was brought, it fell apart, but that's gotta be false advertizing.
    - SkittyDog 5y ago
      I'd like to pose a serious question to you, which might run the risk of offending you--so fair warning, there. I understand the fact that you believe your opinion is reasonable... It sounds like you also understand that the world broadly disagrees with you. A federal judge (Kimba Wood, no less!) disagreed with you... Since there was no appeal, I'd gather that the guy couldn't find funds to continue his suit--so his backers seem to have disagreed, too. Is there a reason why you're more willing to believe in the idea that "All these people, including experienced legal minds, must be wrong", rather than "My own layman's intuition about the law must wrong"? I'm asking because I genuinely don't understand why you'd want to continue backing your POV in the face of evidence to the contrary. I may have missed something, and I'm curious what your thought process looks like.
      - freeopinion 5y ago
        I know this just drags out the point--sorry for that--but your reasoning is based on a false statement. You reason that "Since there was no appeal...", but in point of fact, there was an appeal. Consider this my pedantic contribution to a discussion about a pedantic case.
        SkittyDog 5y ago
        You got me there, yep... So that means a Federal appellate court also disagreed? Not sure what what stage of the appeal process he got to, so I dunno if that strengthens the argument or what.
      - billytetrud 5y ago
        There's a difference between what is legal and what is right. What is actually legal is muddled in stacks of overriding law and legal precedent that no "reasonable person" could every really know completely. I would bet you that more than 30% of the country wouldn't have seen that and thought "oh that's obviously a joke".
- goodcanadian 5y ago
  I am not an expert on U.S. law, so I can't answer in detail, but you better believe that formal standards to define that have been developed. I have heard of polling being done to determine what the average "reasonable person" thinks. Remember, this is not what any individual random person thinks, but what people in general are likely to think, so Poe's law doesn't really apply.
paulcole 5y ago
You don’t need to rely on your memory here. There’s an article with details at your fingertips!

systemvoltage 5y ago

Further down in the article, it gives 3 reasons why the court rejected it. One of which was reasonable characterization that anyone would make that it was a joke.

mattmanser 5y ago
The reasons, for those interested but not going to read it, the final one seems a slam dunk too: Advertisements are generally not considered offers in contract law: “Ads for the sale of goods (TV, radio, newspaper, newsletter)… are merely the requests to offer or negotiate” and an advertiser must accept an offer from a customer for it to be legally formed. The ad was obviously a joke: An “ordinary, reasonable person” would conclude that a soft drink company would not give away a fighter plane as part of a promotion. An enforceable contract requires both parties’ signatures: Under existing law, any contract for the sale of goods worth $500+ must be evidenced by writing; Pepsi did not sign anything.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  Here's the thing: did Pepsi come through on the other things advertised in that commercial? If they sent a leather jacket for 1450 points and a mountain bike for 3500, then it seems to me that it is against the public interest to allow a company to make such offers and then rescind them arbitrarily. That's why we get small print saying things like "screens are simulated" and "not actual size" and "while supplies last" or "at participating stores only" -- because without those disclaimers, we should be able to rely on statements about prices, promotions and availability.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    > That's why we get small print saying things like "screens are simulated" and "not actual size" and "while supplies last" or "at participating stores only" -- because without those disclaimers, we should be able to rely on statements about prices, promotions and availability. If they'd advertise a can for 99ct and make a can look like 1l when it is in fact only 0.5l you could reasonably say that one could've expected 1l cans - these cans exist and this would not be out of the ordinary, even though a bit cheaper than usual. If the can in the advertisement would be the size of a truck, it would be hard to argue that you really thought you would get that for 99ct. If they offer something that is a) very rare, b) insanely expensive and c) not allowed to be owned by a private person, I find it very hard to argue that one could reasonably think this is an actual offer. I agree with you that we should not give companies endless leeway to deceive customers, but let's not discard common sense.

vmception 5y ago

he lost on appeal and moved to alaska working in public service. to me that is considered failure.

bagacrap 5y ago

I think it would constitute fake advertising if they accepted his money but failed to uphold their end of the bargain by giving him a functional jet. It's not fake advertising if Ford advertises a truck for $25k but then fails to sell one to you because, for example, they ran out of chips and couldn't make enough trucks.

seoaeu 5y ago
But it would be false advertising if Ford said you could buy a truck for $5k, but told you they actually cost $25k when you showed up to buy it
- mypalmike 5y ago
  It's not entirely unusual for automobile models to be in high enough demand that they are sold at higher than the advertised price (MSRP).
- Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
  Nah, not really. Automobile pricing is closer to traditional K offer/acceptance laws. Additionally no car dealer would advertise such a deal without including a clause stating the price is subject to (usually many) conditions and could change at any time. False advertising is a rather narrow doctrine, one that by necessity has to interact with standard contract law. Cases where false advertising involves prices usually include issues like hidden fees (telecoms signing you up for X a month but then your bill includes Y fees that weren't disclosed to you). More commonly, false advertising concerns things like consumer deception - claims that something is "clinically proven" when it actually isn't, for instance. In general, in contract law, if the changed price is communicated to you before you have accepted the offer, then there's no issue. There are literally hundreds of years of precedent going back to the English common law describing what does and does not constitute an offer and what does and doesn't constitute acceptance of an offer.
  - tzs 5y ago
    If they don't actually have any $5k trucks but claim they do in order to lure people in to try to sell them $25k trucks that would be a bait and switch that would run afoul of the law in several states. The FTC would probably also have something to say.

bryan0 5y ago

> Leonard filed suit, claiming that Pepsi’s ad had constituted as a binding offer. The article says the judge ruled it was not a binding offer for 3 reasons: 1. Advertisements are generally not considered offers in contract law. 2. The ad was obviously a joke. 3. An enforceable contract requires both parties’ signatures.

kolinko 5y ago
Fun fact ad 3 - in some countries (Poland) there is a concept in law of a public promise. If a corporation publicly promises something (a competition usually), they are obliged to act upon it, even if there were no signatures on the other side.
- garaetjjte 5y ago
  "Above advertisement does not constitute offer as meant by the article 66 of Civil Code" :)
  - ptsneves 5y ago
    Written everywhere in otomoto. Lol never understood what that pesky caveat was there for.
  - pythonaut_16 5y ago
    The legal form of "but I had my fingers crossed so it doesn't count"
- jimnotgym 5y ago
  In England and Wales (Scotland has its own legal system) there is very famous case law that says that an offer can be made to the world at large (through an advert in this case). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Bal... Which may seem to apply, but this was an offer to add a guarantee to the terms. Whereas merely advertising a price is just an invitation for the buyer to make you an offer. Here is an almost as famous case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Society_of_GB_v_Boots_Cash_Chemists_(Southern)_Ltd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Society_of_GB... I am not surprised our fellow common law jurisdictions like the US reached the same conclusion. The case law that makes up English civil law, especially the early stuff is really fascinating stuff to me. IANAL but understanding the contact law from these cases has won me several disputes in my professional life.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> That seems more or less false. False advertising is explicitly against the law. That’s not the point that was argued, though. An advertisement doesn’t oblige the advertise to engage in a specific transaction with a customer. This isn’t uncommon. If you see a house advertised for sale at $500,000, the owners aren’t obligated to sell you the house for $500,000 or even to sell the house at any price. An advertisement alone isn’t a legally binding offer to complete a transaction. False advertising also requires an intent to deceive or mislead, or at least evidence that the advertiser behaved recklessly in the advertisement. The advertisement is obviously a joke and they wouldn’t be able to find anyone to testify that that PepsiCo actually thought they would be selling a Harrier jet, so proving intent to mislead or reckless behavior would be nearly impossible when the entire premise was a joke. Regardless, I’m inclined to believe the judge who presided over this case and did the work of reading through all of the legal precedent.

gameswithgo 5y ago
I mean, we can certainly believe the Judge applied the law correctly, but also disagree that the law should be this way.
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  You should read the opinion. Ruling otherwise would essentially eliminate obvious jokes from advertising, and the opinion makes a good case for just how obvious the joke was.
- dvt 5y ago
  > I mean, we can certainly believe the Judge applied the law correctly, but also disagree that the law should be this way. I'm not sure what issue you see with the law here. It seems to both be written and applied quite well. The Pepsi ad isn't really misleading or reckless, and obviously just a bit of fun hyperbole.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  No reasonable person can disagree with the legal principle at issue. You are suggesting that if you place an ad on, e.g., Facebook marketplace, you should be legally obligated to engage in the transaction with the first person to accept your asking price. Your position is indisputably absurd.

ezekiel68 5y ago

I'm absolutely not picking on no one when I point out this comment is yet another example of the hazards of applying apparent common sense to matters of law. One doesn't get any extra consideration from a judge for pointing out what seems false. Also, the article makes clear that plaintiff chose a legal strategy closer to contract breach than false advertising.

billytetrud 5y ago
Perhaps that was a misake on the plaintiffs part. But the ruling does seem to contradict legal precedent around bait-and-switch advertising. So its still a bit perplexing.

duxup 5y ago

It was rejected on multiple points, one of them being that nobody reasonably would think a soft drink company was going to give them a fighter jet. I'm inclined to be more protective about false advertising and all... but not the the point of absurdity where we demand they provide someone a fighter jet... or $33m for $700,000 as compensation. Whatever we might feel about advertising, that result would be absurd and solve nothing.

acheron 5y ago

"Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the movie, The Neverending Story!" - https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Lionel_Hutz https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Lionel_Hutz

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything Great to know! Yet another reason not to feel even a little bit bad when I block them.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> The article says his suit was rejected because ads don't obligate the advertiser to anything. This is simply wrong. It was rejected because the particular ad did not (for a variety of reasons cited in the ruling) make an offer that was open to be accepted by the action by which he purported to accept the purported offer, so there was no contract [0], nor was it legally fraud, since Pepsi never cashed the check. Ads, more generally, may or may not create offers open to acceptance by action. > False advertising is explicitly against the law False advertising is different than advertising creating a forward obligations; an advertisement is false or not when presented. OTOH, the puffery reasoning applied in the fraud claim in the Harrier case would also apply to a false advertising claim. [0] while the thing its cited for is puffery, its worth noting that, even if puffery was off the table, the purported subject matter of the agreement would have required a written agreement signed by the parties under the Statute of Frauds to form a valid contract, and obviously no such written agreement existed.

billytetrud 5y ago
> Pepsi never cashed the check. So maybe if the guy had actually first obtained all the point, then demanded the jet, the suit might have come out differently? > cited for is puffery I'm no expert on puffery, but if the definition on wikipedia is correct, it doesn't seem like its puffery because it doesn't express "subjective views" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery . Offering a jet for points is a pretty objective statement. > the purported subject matter of the agreement would have required a written agreement signed by the parties Perhaps that's what would be needed for this to be fraud, but a contract certainly wouldn't be necessary to accuse them of bait-and-switch.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Perhaps that's what would be needed for this to be fraud, No, a valid contract was a requirement of the breach of contract claim, not the fraud claim. > but a contract certainly wouldn't be necessary to accuse them of bait-and-switch. Bait-and-switch isn't a legal cause of action. The usual cause of action for things described as bait and switch is either breach of contract (if there was an agreement) or fraud (if the bait-and-switcher got something of value from the other party out of it). Both were raised in this case, and both failed.