## Facts

- Time, Inc. sent a bulk-rate direct-mail promotion for *Fortune* magazine addressed to recipients including three-year-old Joshua A. Gnaizda.
- The envelope displayed the recipient’s name and a partially visible promise offering a “calculator watch free” “just for opening this envelope” by a stated date, alongside a picture of the watch.
- Additional words not visible until the envelope was opened stated that the recipient also had to mail a certificate; the certificate required purchasing a subscription to receive the watch.
- Plaintiffs alleged the exterior wording was deceptive and that Time did not intend to provide a watch solely in exchange for opening the envelope.
- Plaintiffs sought classwide relief including declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and substantial punitive damages, asserting theories including breach of contract and unfair/deceptive advertising.
- Plaintiffs’ alleged harm was limited to being induced to open the mailing and experiencing disappointment upon learning the conditions.

## Issues

1. Whether the envelope’s promise constituted an offer for a unilateral contract accepted by opening the envelope, and whether a breach claim required pleading notice to Time of the recipients’ performance.
2. Whether claims based on allegedly deceptive advertising could proceed when the only alleged injury was the trivial inconvenience of opening the mail.
3. Whether the de minimis non curat lex doctrine justified dismissal of the action.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment of dismissal.
- The court treated the mailing, for pleading purposes, as potentially constituting an offer for a unilateral contract but held the contract claim failed as pleaded because plaintiffs did not allege facts showing Time had notice that they performed (opened the envelope).
- The court upheld dismissal of the consumer advertising-related claims because plaintiffs alleged no meaningful damage beyond being enticed to open bulk mail; the de minimis doctrine barred litigation over such trifling harm.
- The trial court’s rulings sustaining the demurrer to the contract cause of action and granting summary judgment on the remaining claims were affirmed.

## Legal Principles

- An advertisement or promotional mailing can, in some circumstances, constitute an offer for a unilateral contract where the offeree’s act is the requested acceptance.
- A plaintiff seeking to enforce a unilateral contract must plead and prove required elements of formation and breach, including notice of performance to the promisor when notice is necessary to trigger any duty to perform.
- Courts may dismiss otherwise colorable claims when the alleged injury is so slight that the de minimis non curat lex maxim applies; trivial inconvenience and disappointment, without meaningful loss, is insufficient.
- Consumer-protection and unfair advertising theories require a legally cognizable injury; technical deception without real damage may be nonactionable under de minimis principles.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal because the plaintiffs’ only alleged harm—opening junk mail due to a misleading exterior promise—was too trivial to support relief, and the contract theory failed for lack of pleaded notice to the advertiser of the recipients’ performance.


Harris v. Time, Inc., 191 Cal. App. 3d 449 (Cal. Ct. App. 1987)