Comment by soderfoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by soderfoo | Hacker News Reader

>CVS did not merely collect customers’ Campaign Donations and forward them to the ADA, but, instead, counted Campaign Donations toward the satisfaction of a legally binding obligation, which CVS had made to the ADA, to donate $10 million to the ADA during the three- year period of 2021 through 2023 (the “CVS Obligation”).

Keeping the in mind a complaint is one party's very subjective factual narrative, the "legally binding obligation to donate" jumps out for me.

Does this plaintiff know the agreement's specifics?

If it were, let's say, an agreement that CVS would donate $n over x years (matching customer donations) and in exchange they were promoted as an A.D.A. sponsor, and had permission to use the A.D.A. logo for marketing purposes, I don't find it terribly egregious.

As far as I understand the case is about what a customer donating to the ADA through the CVS system would reasonably expect to happen, vs. what happened. It doesn't matter what the agreement with the ADA is. What matters is what the customer would expect based on what CVS was presenting to them and what happened.

So, consider 2 scenarios:

1. CVS collects $1mm from its customers for the ADA donations. The customers' expectations would be that the ADA would get $11mm. $10mm for CVS's legally binding payment, and the $1mm they donated through CVS. So the customers are short $1mm, and CVS is short $10mm.

2. This suit is claiming that the ADA still receives $10mm. The customer is short $1mm, but CVS is only short $9mm.

Irrespective of what CVS's agreement with the ADA is it sounds like a reasonable person can legitimately claim that #2 led to a donation to CVS, and not the ADA, and so CVS's representation was fraudulent.

Of course, money is fungible, so this is likely hard to prove. But the case seems like a fairly reasonable one on the surface.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me. If I were CVS and lost this case court, I would simply never guarantee any amount of charitable giving again. Then the ADA doesn't have generous backer guaranteeing a 3 year budget of $10M, which is almost certainly not good for the ADA. It seems incredibly short sighted to sue a company for charitable fundraising/giving unless they obviously intended to defraud.

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