Last week's term was estoppel in pais, which is defined as:
equitable estoppel:
A type of estoppel that bars a person from adopting a position in court that contradicts his or her past statements or actions when that contradictory stance would be unfair to another person who relied on the original position. For example, if a landlord agrees to allow a tenant to pay the rent ten days late for six months, it would be unfair to allow the landlord to bring a court action in the fourth month to evict the tenant for being a week late with the rent. The landlord would be estopped from asserting his right to evict the tenant for late payment of rent. Also known as estoppel in pais.
No one guessed this time around.
Today's term is:
promissory estoppel.
As always, educated guesses are welcome, but dictionaries are not.
Promissory estoppel: doctrine under which a promise to act may be enforced as a contract if the person to whom the promise was made took an anticipated action in response to the promise.
Ex.: Blogger promises in text of blog post to insert links to commenters' web site. Promise is enforceable for benefit of those who submit comments. More deponent saith not.
Posted by: Edward Wiest | April 14, 2009 at 01:47 PM