Replying To An Email Does Not Create A Contract (And Does Not Require Walmart Pay $600 Billion)

from the that's-not-how-the-law-works... dept

While this case involves one of the many ridiculous lawsuits filed by individuals demanding insane sums of money from companies for no good reasons, there are some good points in here (also, like many of these lawsuits, it involves a plaintiff who has history of filing lawsuits). Apparently, a guy by the name of David Stebbins sued Walmart. To understand the basis of the lawsuit, you have to understand that he sent various companies a link to a "contract" on his MySpace page, which he claims presents a binding contract (if you're particularly risk averse, you may want to avoid clicking on that link, though it's difficult to believe any such contract is valid). Here are some snippets from the faux contract:

My name is David Anthony Stebbins, and I live in Harrison, AR. I am sending a link to this webpage to various companies to put you on notice: If you contact me in any way, shape, or form, you hereby acknowledge that you have read, understand, and agree to be legally bound by the terms below.

[...]

This will also take effect if I attempt to contact you, and, upon hearing my name, you do not cease communications with me on the spot.

[...] You hereby agree to allow me to use, distribute, and sell the rights to your name, physical likeness, and any intellectual property that you may own, throughout the universe, for no fee, for all eternity.

You hereby agree to not request, nor accept any offer for, any third party to remove any material that I use that you feel that you own the copyright to.

You hereby agree that, for now and for all eternity, in the event that I ask you a question, you must answer it promptly, accurately, and truthfully.

You hereby agree to never

Interrupt me when I am speaking, for all eternity.

Hang up on me in any phone call, for all eternity.

Block my attempts to communicate with you, for any reason, for all eternity.

Ask me a question that I have previously answered, for all eternity.

Demonstrate any rudeness, annoyance, or disrespect, however petty, against me, for all eternity.

Accuse me of lying, or any variation thereof, for all eternity.

It goes on along those lines. Anyway, he sent the email to Walmart with the link to this contract. Walmart customer care sent back a standard, boilerplate reply suggesting he contact a different department, which Stebbins used to claim the contract had been entered into (in combination with him also buying a gallon of milk -- don't ask). He sent a letter to Walmart demanding arbitration to settle their "legal dispute." When Walmart failed to agree to arbitration within 24-hours, he claims that he wins and should get $600 billion (with a b):

"since Wal–Mart did not accept the arbitration invitation within twenty-four hours of receiving it, he automatically wins regardless of the merits of the case and is entitled to an award of six-hundred billion dollars."

Not surprisingly, the court isn't buying it:

Plaintiff maintains Wal–Mart accepted the contract by its “act” of replying to his e-mail....The e-mails from Plaintiff are self-serving documents that did not form the basis for any conduct or performance on Wal–Mart's part....In this case, Wal–Mart performed no act. It merely replied to two e-mails by directing the Plaintiff to the correct department. It performed no service and Plaintiff made no promise.

Obviously, this particular case is something of a joke, but given how often people seek to claim that a contract has been entered into on dubious terms (such as replying to an email), perhaps a bit of reasonable caselaw comes out of this...

Filed Under: contract, email
Companies: walmart

Walmart Employees Fired For Disarming Gun-Toting Robber

from the no-good-deed dept

Walmart has pretty specific rules for how employees are supposed to deal with shoplifters, however, it does seem a bit bizarre that the company would go so far as to fire some employees who disarmed a gun-toting thief. Obviously, the idea is that they don't want to encourage other employees to do the same thing, but does it really reach up to the level of firing the employees? At some point you have to wonder if there's a middle ground that makes sense.

Filed Under: employees, policies
Companies: walmart

Homeland Security Gets Walmart To Tell You To Inform On Your Neighbors

from the are-they-serious? dept

Sometimes you just wonder what folks in our government are thinking half the time. The latest is that Homeland Security, when it's not busy seizing domains of hip hop blogs, is apparently on a campaign to enlist shoppers at Walmarts in a somewhat creepy attempt to get people to spy on their neighbors. The program is officially called "If You See Something, Say Something" which could be shortened to "Inform on Your Neighbors" if DHS is looking for efficiency.

More bizarre is the Walmart tie-in. As you check out, you'll see a video from Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano reminding customers to watch and report any "suspicious activity."

Does anyone in Homeland Security actually think this sort of thing is effective? I think most people know perfectly well to report anything really suspicious that they see. But seeing Janet Napolitano's talking head at Walmart checkouts telling people to keep an extra special eye out just feels creepy and Big Brother-ish.

Filed Under: homeland security
Companies: walmart

Elastic Wristband Maker Sues Walmart For Copyright Infringement

from the elastic-wristbands? dept

You know those silly elastic wristbands that kids wear? Yeah, well, apparently the company BCP Imports makes the (apparently?) popular brand of them called Silly Bandz, and has somehow copyrighted some aspect of the bands. Anyway, that company is now suing Walmart for selling elastic bands from a different company, claiming that it's copyright infringement. Specifically, they're upset that Walmart is selling elastic bands from a company, Crimzon Rose, that also makes them in similar shapes to Silly Bandz. Beyond the copyright claim, they're also saying that the packaging is too similar. Whatever happened to competition being legal and good for the economy?

Filed Under: copyright, silly bandz, wristbands
Companies: bcp imports, walmart

Blockbuster Bankruptcy, Yet Again, Highlights How It's Not Easy To Just Copy The Disruptive Innovation

from the and-there-we-go-again dept

Late last week, there were a ton of press reports about how Blockbuster was preparing to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September. It's not shutting down, but just trying to restructure its debt, get out from under a bunch of store leases and try, try again. That said, this is yet another example of the fallacy of the claim of many that if you have a good idea some big company will just come along, copy it, and be successful. It also demonstrates the huge difference between idea and execution.

Netflix had a good idea and executed well on it. But for years everyone thought it was only a matter of time until the company got destroyed, because all these bigger (at the time) companies were just going to copy Netflix and win. First it was Wal-Mart. The retail giant started a service that seemed almost identical to Netflix way back in 2002. Everyone thought there was no way an upstart like Netflix could compete with the likes of Wal-Mart. Fast forward two and a half years and Netflix took over Wal-Mart's online DVD rental business, because Wal-Mart's offering couldn't compete.

In between those events, in late 2004, Amazon stepped into the market (oddly, Netflix itself broke the news), by starting a Netflix-clone in the UK, though everyone expected them to bring it to the US as well. Even those who thought Wal-Mart didn't have the digital know-how to compete with Netflix figured that Amazon had a strong likelihood of success given its e-commerce success. Jump forward to 2008 and Amazon, which never brought the offering stateside, dumped the DVD rental business in Europe.

And, of course, there was Blockbuster. It came out with a Netflix-like offer around the same time that Wal-Mart did, and while it held on for much longer, it was just never able to build up the same sort of userbase that Netflix did, and now the company is going to declare bankruptcy and try to restructure once again.

It's really a fascinating case study. If you just looked at the simplistic analysis of "oh no, big company will crush small innovative company," you had to imagine that at least one of these firms would destroy Netflix along the way. Wal-Mart is a retailing giant, and even if it didn't have the digital chops, it had more money and distribution process efficiencies than Netflix could ever dream about. Amazon similarly had cash and distribution scale, along with that digital knowhow. And then Blockbuster had the relationships with Hollywood and a massively powerful brand name when it came to rentals.

But none of them were able to execute in this market nearly as well as Netflix, which really did focus on making the consumer experience top notch from very early on. None of this means that the small company always beats the incumbent. Certainly some big companies are able to step in and crush upstarts. But it's not nearly as easy as some people make it out to be.

Filed Under: disruptive innovation, dvd rentals
Companies: amazon, blockbuster, netflix, walmart

Once Again, Walmart Stops People From Printing Family Photos Due To Copyright Law Claims

from the a-real-winner dept

It's been many years since we first wrote about how stores like Walmart were dealing with ridiculous copyright laws by telling employees to simply not allow the printing of "professional-looking" photos, just in case they were covered by someone else's copyright. Last year, a story popped up about a Walmart employee not letting a family print their own old family photos for this reason. It looks like we've got yet another such story. greenbird was the first of a few of you to send in this story about Walmart (yet again) not allowing the printing of family photos (this time for a funeral, which makes it that much more tragic), with copyright used as the reason. Once again, the employee made some dumb statements, such as saying "copyright is forever."

But, just like last time, I have to say that we shouldn't blame the Walmart employee, who is just trying to protect her job, and lives in a world where copyright maximalists constantly push this sort of message. It's not her fault, it's the fault of current copyright law, which makes such things seems reasonable, and the ongoing effort by lobbyists and politicians to only push copyright law further in that direction.

Filed Under: copyright, photos
Companies: walmart