AAWS goes to court over $21.50

Anyway, here is the follow-up case opinion:

Sanders v. NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICES, INC., Cal: Court of Appeal, 4th Appellate Dist., 1st Div. 2009

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12612546566525243861&q=%22an...

Facts:

Sanders is incarcerated at Calipatria State Prison for life without the possibility of parole. He continues to seek the refund of $21.50 for burritos and tamales he ordered and paid for in April 2005 during a fundraiser at the prison, but never received. Sanders filled out and signed a one-page preprinted form titled "AA/NA MEXICAN FOOD SALE." The form authorized the prison warden to withdraw the $21.50 from Sanders's trust account "for the purposes stated below." The form described the "purposes" as "AA/NA Mexican food sale, 10% to the inmate welfare fund and 100% of the remaining profits will be divided and donated to AA/NA and other charities." (Some capitalization omitted.)

Holding:

NAWS produced evidence it "exists to administer the Fellowship Intellectual Property Trust, which holds the trademarks for the name `Narcotics Anonymous' and the copyrights for the Narcotics Anonymous recovery literature." There are more than 33,000 local groups using the name "Narcotics Anonymous" in 118 countries around the world. "These local groups many times are individuals that gather together to have meetings to support each individual's efforts to achieve and maintain sobriety. Some local groups create formal legal entities, where others are unincorporated associations of individuals. Local groups are permitted to use the Narcotics Anonymous name." NAWS established it was not involved in and had no knowledge of the Mexican food sale held at Calipatria prison in 2005. Further, NAWS did not know "whether a local group contacted the prison to organize the Mexican food sale. . . . NAWS does not have any [affiliation] of any nature with any of the local groups, including any local group that may have been involved in the Mexican food sale." Sanders produced no countervailing evidence.

Sanders essentially ignores NAWS's evidence. He claims that Sanders I establishes he had a reasonable probability of prevailing on the merits. Sanders, however, misunderstands Sanders I, which was a review of a demurrer ruling and pertained only to the sufficiency of the complaint allegations. We concluded that construing the allegations of the complaint liberally, it adequately alleged the "NA" and "AA" in the food order form meant NAWS and AAWS, respectively. We explained that the order form was in the nature of a purchase order, it did not have to be signed by the party offering the food to constitute a contract, and a reasonable person presented with the form would assume NAWS and AAWS held or sponsored the food sale to raise funds for themselves. Sanders cites the statement in Sanders I that "[n]otably, the order form does not indicate that any party other than AAWS and NAWS solicited funds from Sanders offering him a delivery of Mexican food." (Sanders I, supra, D048834 at p. 7.)

Sanders I does not concern the substantive merits of the breach of contract action. Rather, the merits were required to be litigated through pretrial proceedings or trial. NAWS has now adduced uncontroverted evidence it was uninvolved in the food sale and there was no contract between it and Sanders, and thus NAWS is not liable to him for the refund of $21.50. Sanders submitted no evidence suggesting NAWS was in a principal-agency relationship with the "NA" referred to on the order form. Substantial evidence supports the court's ruling that Sanders had no reasonable probability of prevailing on the merits.