Court Opinion

ID: 9585594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:01:58.672684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:31.135961
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
dissenting.
I share the majority’s sympathy for the plaintiffs. But, for two reasons, I cannot endorse their ratio decidendi. First, there was no contract; second, Dulany’s promise of severance pay was not otherwise legally enforceable.
As hornbook law teaches, the three essential elements of a contract are an offer, an acceptance, and consideration.* Unlike a *514gratuitous promise, an offer (usually, but not always, a promise) is a manifestation of a willingness to enter into a bargain. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 24 (Tent. Drafts Nos. 1-7, 1973). An offer identifies the bargained for exchange, id., Comment b, and creates a power of acceptance in the offeree, id. § 28(1). See Richmond Eng. Corp. v. Loth, 135 Va. 110, 153, 115 S.E. 774, 786 (1923). Unless bargained for, a benefit the offeree confers upon the offeror cannot constitute consideration. Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 75 and 84 and Comments thereto (Tent. Drafts Nos. 1-7, 1973). Applying these principles to the facts at bar, I find that there was no offer, that there could have been no acceptance, and that the benefit Dulany received did not constitute consideration.
At most, Dulany’s memorandum of January 28, 1975, was a promise to grant severance benefits to employees on the payroll January 26, 1975. An employee who quit work on January 27 was as much entitled to the promised payment as one who remained at work until Dulany ceased operating the plant. The memorandum was a promise to pay for work already performed; it was not a manifestation of a willingness to enter into a bargain for continued services. Nor did it create a power of acceptance; the employees could do nothing they had not already done to bind the promisor to perform the promise. While their continued services may have benefitted Dulany, the benefit did not constitute consideration because those services had not been bargained for.
Hercules Powder Co. v. Brookfield, 189 Va. 531, 53 S.E.2d 804 (1949), does not support the conclusion the majority reaches. Indeed, it affirms the principles of contract law I would apply. Hercules published a plan for payment of dismissal wages to employees, provided they continued to furnish satisfactory services for a stated period of time. This Court held, in effect, that the plan constituted an offer, which identified the exchange bargained for and created a power of acceptance in the offerees, and that Brookfield, by furnishing such services and forgoing the right to seek other employment, accepted the offer and furnished the consideration necessary to the formation of a contract. Moreover, the cases from sister states cited by the majority are similar to Hercules; in each, an employee continued to work after publication of a plan making continued service a condition precedent to eligibility for severance benefits.
Though a contract, in the traditional sense, does not exist, a promise may yet be legally enforceable. To avert inequity, some *515courts have applied the doctrine that a promisor may, under certain circumstances, be estopped to breach his promise.
“A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. The remedy granted for breach may be limited as justice requires.”
Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90(1) (Tent. Drafts Nos. 1-7, 1973); see also Restatement of Contracts § 90 (1932). So stated, the doctrine of promissory estoppel has three elements: (1) the promisor should reasonably expect his promise to induce action or forbearance by the promisee, (2) the promise does induce such action or forbearance, and (3) enforcement of the promise is necessary to avoid injustice to the promisee. Promissory estoppel, like estoppel in pais, is an equitable device invoked to prevent a person from being injured by a change in position made in reasonable reliance on another’s conduct. See Cochran v. Ollis Creek Coal Co., 206 S.E.2d 410, 414 (W. Va. 1974).
This Court has never expressly applied this doctrine. Even if it were viable in Virginia and could be asserted offensively in an action at law, it would not aid the plaintiffs here. At least one of its three elements is missing. Although continued service was not a condition of the promise, I assume arguendo that Dulany should have expected its promise to induce its employees to continue working at the Exmore plant and that this promise did, in fact, induce most of the plaintiffs to do so. (Some testified that the promise was not an inducement.) While this was a benefit to Dulany, the plaintiffs have not shown that they suffered any detriment by relying on Dulany’s promise. Rather, the contrary appears. If the ongoing operation at the plant benefitted Dulany by making the plant more attractive to potential buyers, the employees also benefited by obtaining a new employer. Thus, enforcement of Dulany’s promise is not necessary to avoid injustice to the plaintiffs, and, absent this element, the doctrine of promissory estoppel does not apply.
I would reverse the judgments for the plaintiffs and enter final judgment for Dulany.
COCHRAN, J., joins in dissent.

 Sometimes a promise is legally enforceable despite the absence of one or more of these three elements, Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 7, 19, and 86-94 (Tent. Drafts Nos. 1-7, 1973), and the rubric “contract” is often applied to such special cases.