Detrimental reliance is widely described in treatises and in case law as a critical and defining feature of equitable estoppel.
I wrote chidingly in 1984 that "to the extent that the judges have seen
detrimental reliance as a 'foreign importation,' they have occasionally rejected it on a doctrinaire basis without fully exploring its practical utility.
the injustice were defined as the
detrimental reliance suffered by the
Implicit in the forbearance and
detrimental reliance arguments, although rejected on the facts, is the position that both principles offer alternative grounds for the enforcement of modified contracts, provided there is a legal right of breach and a defensive estoppel argument respectively.
157) Assuming that there was
detrimental reliance, the important question would then be what the correct interpretation of the clauses contained in the lease was.
Such equitable remedies are different than damages awarded to remedy the intentional tort of common law fraud and deceit which requires all of the elements of misrepresentation, reasonable
detrimental reliance, and proximate cause as well as damages.
DAWSON, GIFTS AND PROMISES: CONTINENTAL AND AMERICAN LAW COMPARED 88-90, 188-91 (1980) (discussing the failure of either French or German courts to attach independent significance to
detrimental reliance as a basis for promissory enforcement).
Refraining from seeking other employment cannot amount to
detrimental reliance unless the at-will employee, in relying on the promise, actually rejected employment offers.
Chapter 5 Waiver, Equitable Estoppel, and
Detrimental Reliance in Insurance Contracts
the taxpayer suffered no
detrimental reliance, because it had paid the GCT before a 1998 letter ruling, believing the tax was legally owed).
Gordon alternatively contends that these protections arose by reason of its
detrimental reliance on Brox's offer, under principles of promissory estoppel, apart from the existence of a contract.
Not too long ago, I published a short essay, The Death of Reliance,(42) in which I reported the scholarly consensus -- including such diverse writers as Daniel Farber & John Matheson, Juliet Kostritsky, Edward Yorio & Steve Thel, Mary Becker, and Michael Kelly(43) -- that had emerged over the past fifteen years or so, that
detrimental reliance was not the key to understanding the doctrine of promissory estoppel.
