Katz v. Danny Dare Missouri Court of Appeals 1980 1) Facts a) Plaintiff worked for Defendant from 1950 until his retirement in 1975. b) Plaintiff received a head injury trying to retrieve money taken from a store operated by Defendant. c) Plaintiff returned to work following the injury, but his walk was impaired, he had some memory loss, and did not function as he had prior to the incident. d) After returning to work, Plaintiff made several mistakes at considerable cost to Defendant. Defendant began attempts to induce Plaintiff to retire. e) Plaintiff finally agreed to retire with a pension from Defendant of $13,000 a year for life. Plaintiff testified that without the pension, he would not have retired. f) Plaintiff began working part time for another company and then also for Defendant on a pert time basis. g) Plaintiff worked part time for Defendant for two and a half years. At this point Defendant reduced the size of the pension check to Plaintiff. h) Plaintiff returned the check and indicated that he was entitled to the full amount. Defendant stopped sending checks testifying that the reason was Plaintiff’s health had improved to where he could return to work. i) Plaintiff testified that the cut was made after he refused to increase the number of hours he was working for Defendant. 2) History a) The trial court found in favor of the defendant b) Plaintiff appeals that decision c) Plaintiff claims that there was substantial reliance on the promise made by Dare 3) Issues a) Was there reliance upon the offer by the promisee i) The plaintiff relied upon the offer to pay a pension by quitting his job and taking a 10,000 dollar cut. The benefit to Dare was that he had then cut out money from his overhead. The idea that Katz must show his detirment to something that he was legally entitled to is faulty in this case b) Does the threat to fire impact reliance i) No, the threat alone does not indicate that the plaintiff had no other option. Without actually firing him there is no proof that he would have fired the plaintiff if he had not taken the money. c) All the elements of promissory estoppel are met and Katz can only recover through the allocation of the money that he was promised in his pension 4) Judgment: reversed and remanded in favor of Katz