Yes, Dan has the right to maintain a law suit for breach of contract. According to Melvin (2011), “While the word contract is often used to describe a written document, many contracts are not in writing and yet are enforceable. Any agreement, oral or written, may result in a binding contract so long as it meets certain requirements (p. 126).” Dan should be entitled to some sort of money for at least the synopsis. Roy’s executive secretary testified that, the synopsis was indeed Dan. This gives him the upper hand in the law suit too. This will be consider a bilateral contract. According to Melvin (2011), a bilateral contract “involves two promises and two performances. Most contracts are bilateral contracts (p. 126).” According to Melvin (2011), “when the parties have imperfectly expressed their agreement and this imperfection results in a dispute, a court may change the contract by rewriting it to conform to the parties’ actual intentions. This contract modification is called reformation (p. 173).” The magazine deceived the consumer by only showing part of the contents through the envelope. From what I understand after reformation, the magazine will be responsible for changing the envelope and making it clear for the consumer to see all the details. This is a sign of breach of contract, making them liable and would be cover under compensatory damages.
The $15 million punitive damage is way too much, but it would be according to Melvin (2011), “the duty to mitigate is the nonbreaching party’s obligation to avoid excessive or unnecessary damages through reasonable efforts or else be barred from recovery for those avoidable costs of nonperformance (p.