InterRogerTory:
Dear Roger,
I just celebrated a milestone birthday! Well, “celebrated” might not be the right word; my friend told me that she and some other friends were planning a surprise party for me, and it turned out that the surprise was that there wasn’t a party! I relied on my friend telling me that she was planning a party and didn’t plan one for myself. I can never get back my one chance to celebrate this birthday! Can I make my friends give me presents?
Love,
Lonely and present-less
Response:
Dear Lonely,
My heart is breaking for you! I will wish you a happy belated birthday, even if your friends failed to acknowledge your special day.
There are a few legal concepts that have made their way into general conversation that may be relevant here. One is the intentional infliction of emotional distress, which really is something that people can sue for! Intentional infliction of emotional distress is “a tort that occurs when one acts in a manner that intentionally or recklessly causes another to suffer severe emotional distress, such as issuing the threat of future harm.” The other is promissory estoppel, which is “the doctrine that a party may recover on the basis of a promise made when the party’s reliance on that promise was reasonable , and the party attempting to recover detrimentally relied on the promise.”
Let’s look at intentional infliction of emotional distress. There are four elements of this cause of action.
- There is an action that was taken. In other words, if all that happened was your friends didn’t plan the party, that wouldn’t meet this element. But your friend who told you about the party? A judge could easily find that was an action.
- The action was outrageous. This might depend on the circumstances. If, say, this milestone birthday were your 18th, and this happened, knowing the maturity of 18 year old, that could be different than if this were your 40th birthday and better able to withstand emotional blows. (On the other hand, there are a lot of milestone birthdays when you’re a teenager, and very few once you’re 30 and older.)
- The action was intended to cause distress or recklessly caused distress. Do we know that this action was intentional? Is it possible that your friends really did plan a surprise party and then something happened after the surprise was blown that made your friends need to cancel the party? But why would they have blown the surprise if it wasn’t for the purpose of causing you distress?
- The action caused actual severe emotional distress. You know better than I if this caused you severe emotional distress, but I can imagine that if my friends did this to me, I might still hold resentment about it 30 years later. That sounds pretty severe to me.
And promissory estoppel:
- A promise.
- Reliance on that promise.
- To the detriment of the person who relied on the promise.
Does telling you that there would be a party count as a promise? I would suggest that a review of case law might be necessary to evaluate this question. It sounds like you did rely on the statement that there would be a party, but a judge might consider whether you regularly planned parties for yourself for past birthdays when considering the extent of the detriment and amount of any damages to be awarded.
So, will either of these causes of action get you the outcome you’re looking for? Probably not. But even if you were to win on one or both of these claims, what you really want is better friends, not their presents. And really, if your so-called “friends” are this callous, do you expect them to buy presents that you’d actually like? Monetary damages are more likely to be of interest, or specific performance, which would require your friends to throw you a party.
Is all this worth it? This probably isn’t an action for a real court, but Hannah Montana’s Teen Court might hear the case!
I hope your next birthday is significantly better!
Love,
Roger