Opinion ID: 4556814
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contract and Promissory Estoppel Claims

Text: The complaint alleged that the terms of service constituted a contract between Allnurses and its members, which include Olynyk as a registered user of Allnurses.com, and that Test Prep was “an entity intended to benefit” from the contract. According to the complaint, Allnurses breached the contract when it failed to remove certain posts about Test Prep and when it prohibited Olynyk and others from engaging in “lively debate” and from “disagree[ing] with anyone on any type of subject.” The district court determined that the complaint did not allege facts in -8- support of the contention that Test Prep was an intended beneficiary of the terms of service, nor did it “properly allege[] that a contract was formed through the [terms of service].” D. Ct. Order of Jan. 29, 2018, at 32. The district court also concluded that Test Prep had failed to state a plausible claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Test Prep has not challenged the district court’s determination that the company was not an intended beneficiary of Allnurses’s terms of service, and the complaint does not allege that the company itself was a party to the contract. In the absence of any contractual relationship between Test Prep and Allnurses, there is no basis for the complaint’s allegation that Allnurses had “certain obligations to [Test Prep] under the [terms of service] of the [w]ebsite Allnurses.com, including without limitation, to take down defamatory or ‘potentially libelous’ or ‘libelous’ information [and] defamatory posts.” Test Prep’s separate claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing likewise fails, because the covenant “does not extend to actions beyond the scope of the underlying contract.” In re Hennepin Cty. 1986 Recycling Bond Litig., 540 N.W.2d 494, 503 (Minn. 1995)).5 We are thus left with the question whether the complaint alleged facts sufficient to state a claim that Allnurses breached a contract with Olynyk, who is both a registered user of Allnurses.com and a plaintiff in this action.6 5 The district court applied Minnesota law in determining the contract-related claims, and we will do so as well. Neither party has argued that the district court should have applied New Jersey law. 6 Other Test Prep employees were registered users and thus may have entered into a contract with Allnurses when they agreed to the terms of service, but those individuals are not plaintiffs in this case. Accordingly—although the terms of service allow Allnurses to remove posts and disable accounts—we need not decide whether Allnurses breached the terms when it removed the repeated comments and disabled the account of a Test Prep employee in December 2014. -9- Olynyk argues that Allnurses breached the terms of service when it did not “immediately tak[e] down libelous information” and when it closed the discussion thread, thereby preventing him from correcting the false and derogatory statements about Test Prep. The terms state, in relevant part: You are not allowed to post libelous information about a person, school, instructor, health care facility, or entity. Any post which is violative of any law or is invasive of a person’s privacy will be taken down immediately. We promote the idea of lively debate. This means you are free to disagree with anyone on any type of subject matter as long as your criticism is constructive and polite. Assuming that Allnurses’s terms of service constituted an offer that he accepted when he registered on Allnurses.com, Olynyk has failed to plead facts sufficient to establish any breach by Allnurses. “A breach of contract is a failure, without legal excuse, to perform any promise that forms the whole or part of the contract.” Lyon Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Ill. Paper & Copier Co., 848 N.W.2d 539, 543 (Minn. 2014). “[A] breach of contract claim requires only that the promise at issue be part of the parties’ bargain.” Id.; see Baehr v. Penn-O-Tex Oil Corp., 104 N.W.2d 661,664-65 (Minn. 1960) (“[A] contract is a legally enforceable promise,” which is an assurance “that a thing will or will not be done.”). Allnurses did not promise in the first quoted paragraph to identify and immediately remove any and all potentially false statements. Instead, it clearly disallowed users from posting libelous information and informed them that illegal or inappropriate posts would be removed. Allnurses’s statement that it “promote[s] the idea of a lively debate” was not a promise to keep its discussion threads open, particularly in light of the provision that “[p]roblematic posts/threads may be deleted or closed.” Olynyk’s breach of contract claims thus fails as a matter of law. Because he made no additional arguments for reversal of judgment on his claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, we have no reason to separately consider that claim. -10- Finally, we conclude that the district court properly granted judgment in favor of Allnurses on the promissory estoppel claim. The complaint alleged that Allnurses made “promises in the [terms of service] and through communications with Mark Olynyk.” For the same reasons that the relevant terms of service do not constitute a contractual obligation, they likewise do not constitute a “clear and definite” promise sufficient to support Test Prep’s promissory estoppel claim. See Martens v. Minn. Mining & Mfg. Co., 616 N.W.2d 732, 746 (Minn. 2000) (holding that a statement was not sufficiently “clear and definite” to constitute an enforceable promise). Moreover, Allnurses made no promises in its explanatory messages to Olynyk stating why the thread had been closed, which constituted “the only communication [Test Prep] allege[d] between Olynyk and Allnurses.” D. Ct. Order of Jan. 29, 2018, at 33.