Commercial Division Allows Promissory Estoppel to Proceed After Dismissing Contract Claim; Limits Scope of Out-of-State Eavesdropping Law
Does an “agreement to agree” establish an enforceable contract? Not if it fails to provide objective criteria for a court to enforce material terms, according to the Albany County Commercial Division’s decision in Media Logic USA, LLC v. Prinova US, LLC.[1] But all may not be lost for plaintiffs spurned by a promise to do business, as Justice Richard M. Platkin explains how promissory estoppel may provide an alternative avenue for relief. In the same opinion, a discovery-related allegation of unlawful recording prompted Justice Platkin to determine the scope of Illinois’s eavesdropping statute, explaining that it does not prohibit recording (and use thereof) of a participant’s own conversation, and does not apply at all to conversations recorded in New York.