jedidiah

Firstly, it's Jedidiah. Secondly, I haven't gone to law school-yet.

Finally, contracts are complex, but the basic theory is not. There are three parts: An offer, an acceptance of the offer, and then the actually performance.

Placing an item on the shelf with a pricetag is an offer. If Walmart puts a pricetag of $5 on a t-shirt, they can't charge you $15 for it when you bring it to the register. Why? Because putting it on the shelf, for sale, with a price tag, constitutes an offer. Picking up the item and bringing it to the register constitutes acceptance of the offer. The actual exchange of money and goods is the performance of the contract.

By putting the Treehouse of Horror on the shelf, the offer was made. The offer was then accepted by the consumer. The final piece, the performance, is the aspect that violated by Circuit City's refusal to sell the DVD, but a contract was already established by the first two aspects being met--an extension of an offer and the acceptance of the offer.

jough

Actually, they *can* charge you anything you want - until money changes hands the deal is still in the "offer" stage, and thus they can tell you the price is anything they want.

Your handing them your money is your "acceptance" of the contract.

They should not have put product on the shelves that was not actually for sale - and you may have a discrimination suit on your hands if you can prove that they sold said item to anyone but you - but unless they took your money and did not relinquish possession of the item, the two parties (you and the store) have no obligation to the other.

Drexl

I have a question about street date violations and the penalties for them. Is there a system in place to automatically fine a store for breaking a street date, or does someone have to report it? I'm guessing someone has to actually notify a distributor that a store is breaking street date for the store to get fined. If stores were automatically fined for street date violations, I can't imagine why they wouldn't have a system like Circuit City's that prevents them.

darkside

I got this DVD today and I'm still curious about why this was even released. It looks more like a bootleg than an official Fox release. The top sticker says The Simpsons Tree House of Terror instead of Horror, the sleeve is very dark and looks like it came off a home printer and the four episodes are V, VI, VII, and XII which seems rather random.

It seems a waste to get this when we will have Treehouse of Horror XII included in the regular box set that will be released in only 10 or 15 years.

Strange release but the four episodes are all really good ones including the 3D homer bit in VI the Harry Potter take in XII.

Peep

I don't think this is true, at least in California. I was just at a store the other day and they had a sticker up at the entrance from some state or local government agency saying that they were fined recently for not selling an item to undercover agents for the posted price.

Although it didn't mention what item was sold, I was amazed at the level of detail that the sticker contained.

Hey, who knew that contract law could actually differ in different parts of this country!!!

Scott27

No. I work in retail, and if there's a price discrepancy between the shelf tag, price sticker on the item, or what it rings up at the register, the store legally has to give it to the customer for the lower/lowest price. I'm sure that is the law in all 50 states.

Ninja Gaiden

jedidiah, dont be a tool. Who cares if it was on a shelf. Some kid making 6 bucks an hour put it on the shelf early by accident. Quit talking about "contracts." Don't be so anal.

homerun31

Actually the music videos were the likes of:
Kellly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, CHristina Aguilera, R. kelly and 8 others.

Dacoops3

Just out of curiousity, was it in a amaray or a CD case, or a sleeve? The one I got last week was in a amaray DVD case, and had the track listing someone mentioned above (Coldplay, Jane's Addiction, etc.).