Death in the Wedding Party
Imagine a scenario. You are a wedding photographer, hired to shoot a wedding in March. In February, a month before the wedding is scheduled, the bride is killed in an accident. The groom reaches out to you and asks for a refund of their deposit. You check in your contract, and it says clearly that under no circumstances is the deposit refundable, including force majeure circumstances. You tell the groom that you cannot return the deposit, but you would be happy to move the reservation to a different event - “perhaps your next wedding,” you say. The groom is shocked, and posts on his Facebook account what you told him. His post takes off, and soon your vendor pages on various review sites such as Yelp and TheKnot are flooded with one-star reviews and harsh comments. Your business is ruined, and you decide to sue him for defamation. You go to your lawyer.
Your lawyer looks at you a little stunned. Yes, she says, your contract says that your deposit is non-refundable under all circumstances, including force majeure scenarios; under the terms of this contract, you are not obliged to return the deposit. However, she continues, a court could choose to invalidate this portion of your contract for several reasons. Impossibility, for example, is a legal doctrine and defense to breach of contract that states that when a particular condition which all parties to the contract assume would continue when the contract was signed ceases to exist, through no fault of the parties, the parties are released from their obligations. The bride has died; her presence was a “particular condition which all parties to the contract assume would continue,” and without her, the contract may be impossible to perform. Frustration of purpose is a similar doctrine, that states that even if a contract may be technically fulfilled, circumstances have changed such that performance of the contract would produce a drastically different result than the one anticipated. You offered the groom your services for another event, “perhaps your next wedding.” While your contract may allow for you to change reservations like this, nevertheless performance of a wedding photography contract after the intended bride has been tragically killed would produce a “drastically different result” than originally intended. What was meant to be a joyous occasion has become something ghastly, a performance of services that are no longer needed merely to avoid returning the deposit, in a manner likely to be deeply offensive to the remaining wedding party.
Your lawyer peers at you over her glasses. It may be that you have the right to keep the deposit, she says, even aside from these potential defenses. But being a frank counselor is more than just telling you what the law says you can do; there are many situations in which you are legally entitled to act a certain way that you nevertheless should not act. If you see someone hit by a bus on an otherwise empty street, you are (in most states) not obliged to call an ambulance. But should you walk by and do nothing? There are other rules that govern human society than the law. She holds your gaze a long moment, saying nothing more.
Now, she says, regarding the defamation, as you may know, defamation requires that the defamatory statement be false. She cocks her head. Is it false that you refused to return the deposit? Is it false that you said that you would be happy to photograph the groom’s “next wedding”? If not, then you don’t have a claim.
The law, and your contracts which are enforced by the law, are a kind of baseline behavioral guideline; they state the least of what you must do. Being a functional member of society means sometimes going beyond those standards. You have a legal ability to keep the deposit, but that choice has a consequence, which is the loss of your reputation and your goodwill. If you wish to keep the goodwill of your market, you must sometimes do things beyond what your contract requires - you must sometimes act with empathy. A lawyer can help you understand what you can do, under the law, but your own conscience is a far stronger tool to help understand what you should do.