American Contract Law for a Global Age, 2017a

her job at Qwest and enroll in law school, which she had not otherwise
planned to do. . . .
. . . [T]he circumstances support a finding that it would be unjust not to
enforce the promise. Upon reliance on [appellant’s] promise,
[respondent] quit her job. She attended law school despite a serious
health condition that might otherwise have deterred her from going.
These findings are sufficient to show that respondent proved the elements of
promissory estoppel.
Appellant argues that because he advised respondent shortly after she enrolled
in law school that he would not be paying her law-school expenses as they came due,
respondent could not have reasonably relied on his promise to pay her expenses to
her detriment after he repudiated the promise. Appellant contends that the only
injustice that resulted from his promise involved the original $5,000 in expenses that
respondent incurred to enter law school. But appellant’s statement that he would not
pay the expenses as they came due did not make respondent’s reliance unreasonable
because appellant also told respondent that his financial problems were temporary
and that he would pay her tuition when she graduated and passed the bar exam. This
statement made it reasonable for respondent to continue to rely on appellant’s
promise that he would pay her expenses.
Appellant argues that because respondent received a valuable law degree, she
did not suffer any real detriment by relying on his promise. But receiving a law degree
was the expected and intended consequence of appellant’s promise, and the essence
of appellant’s promise was that respondent would receive the law degree without the
debt associated with attending law school. Although respondent benefitted from
attending law school, the debt that she incurred in reliance on appellant’s promise is
a detriment to her.
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Review Question 6. The principal purpose of “reliance” damages (a topic
addressed in this book at much greater length in Chapter VIII) is to put the relying
promisee back in her pre-contractual position by restoring to her what she has lost.
The court says that Fields promised Conrad “a law degree without the debt.” But
what she was promised and what she has lost in reliance on that promise are two
different things. Doesn’t getting the money she spent and getting a law degree
actually put her in a better position than she was before the promise was made? To
what extent, in the language of section 90 of the Second Restatement, can injustice
actually be avoided only by enforcement of the promise?
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170 CHAPTER III: CONSIDERATION