Jules Garrison v. Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., a Corporation

Garrison appeals from an adverse judgment in his action for breach of contract against Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., a corporation. Trial was had before the district court, sitting without a jury, and judgment was entered based upon the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law.

The breach of contract was predicated on offers made by Warner Brothers, through the media of a newsreel and newspaper stories, that it would pay $1,000,000 to anyone who could prove that actor Burt Lancaster, the star of a motion picture entitled “The Flame and the Arrow,” did not perform all the daring stunts he was shown doing in the motion picture. Garrison saw the newsreel and the motion picture. He then had two telephone conversations with an attorney for the corporation. In the first conversation he told the attorney he “felt sure,” “thought,” or “believed” he could prove that Lancaster had not done all of the stunts in the picture. Three days later, Garrison told the attorney he could prove his claim. (No effort, however, was made to prove it until the trial of the action, about three years later.) Garrison, a resident of Los Angeles, California, also told the attorney that if he would…