Burst v. Adolph Coors Co.

• Citation: 650 F.2d 930
• Decision Date: 10 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-1742,80-1742
• Parties: Leonard H. BURST and Dorothy Burst, husband and wife; James Davis and Douetta Burst Davis, husband and wife; William Haag; Frank J. Rebholz; Russell Haag; Leonard Burst, Jr.; Dr. I. Charles Barrale; Charles Rallo; Fred W. Haag; Josef Gal and Thomas B. Curtis, Appellants, v. ADOLPH COORS COMPANY, a Colorado Corporation, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 930

650 F.2d 930

Leonard H. BURST and Dorothy Burst, husband and wife; James Davis and Douetta Burst Davis, husband and wife; William Haag; Frank J. Rebholz; Russell Haag; Leonard Burst, Jr. Dr. I. Charles Barrale; Charles Rallo; Fred W. Haag; Josef Gal and Thomas B. Curtis, Appellants, v. ADOLPH COORS COMPANY, a Colorado Corporation, Appellee.

No. 80-1742.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted May 18, 1981.

Decided June 10, 1981.

Thomas B. Curtis, Kenneth M. Romines, Leland B. Curtis, Clayton, Mo., for appellants.

Kohn, Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum, Alan C. Kohn, Terry Lueckenhoff, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, ARNOLD, Circuit Judge, and BECKER, ^* Senior District Judge.

PER CURIAM.

Pursuant to its decision to begin distributing its beer in Missouri, Adolph Coors Company, a Colorado corporation, created a distribution plan which divided Missouri into thirteen separate geographical areas. In August of 1977 Coors released news reports requesting any person interested in becoming a Coors distributor to write the company requesting an application. Coors mailed formal applications and copies of Coors' "Basic Distributor Selection Guidelines" to the plaintiffs, represented principally by Leonard H. Burst, and approximately 1600 other prospective applicants. Three hundred seventy-nine applications were completed and returned to Coors of which thirty-five, including Burst's, were for the Area No. 10 distributorship. Burst was one of four applicants selected for a field interview for Area No. 10 and the only one asked to Coors' headquarters for an in-house interview. However, on February 7, 1978, Burst received a letter notifying him that his application to become a Coors distributor had been rejected. Coors found none of the original applicants for Area No. 10 satisfactory and did not award the distributorship to any of them. Instead, Coors had Coors Distributing Company, a subsidiary, handle the distribution of its products until a suitable applicant could be found. Finally, in early 1979 Coors awarded United City Distributors, which had not been one of the original thirty-five applicants, the distributorship for a part of original Area No. 10. Coors Distributing Company retained the remainder.

Burst thereafter filed suit based upon allegations of promissory estoppel and unjust enrichment. ¹ Coors moved for summary judgment. The district court, D.C., 503 F.Supp. 19, sustained the motion, from which Burst appeals.

Count I of Burst's complaint alleges that he relied on Coors' published distributor selection guidelines to his detriment when Coors failed to comply with the guidelines. The first essential element of promissory estoppel is that the defendant has made a binding offer in the form of a promise. Debron Corporation v. National Homes Construction Corporation, 493 F.2d 352, 357 (8th Cir. 1974). The district court viewed Coors' selection guidelines as an invitation to interested persons to submit applications to be considered for a Coors distributorship and not an offer to form a distributorship contract. The court found that the only express promise Coors made in the guidelines was to give each application "fair and equal consideration." The district court correctly held that Coors made no promise which Burst could reasonably interpret to be an offer and on which he could reasonably rely.

Burst's Counts II and III allege that Coors was unjustly enriched by the information contained in his application. Count II alleges that because of Burst's application Coors "became aware for the...