On the surface, Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., hereinafter referred to as the case, could be seen
as affirmative for the Plaintiff…something was promised for some action taken. However, cases
are decided by interpreting the law surrounding the circumstances of such cases and not based on
our mere opinions or how we feel about a situation. Dickson and Zalta (2016) purport that in our
attempts to understand the law and how cases are tried or decided, one should be mindful of how
judges do and/or should decide cases. The question before the court was whether the Pepsi Stuff
commercial constituted an offer to allow Plaintiff Leonard to collect the Harrier Jet from
Defendant Pepsico. The court held for the Defendant that the commercial did not constitute an
offer. Based on the legal reason of the case, I agree with the court.
While both sides offered strong arguments, as indicated in the case (Leonard v. Pepsico,
Inc., 1999), the first step for the court was to decide if the Defendant's request for summary
judgment should be granted (Cornell Law School, n.d.) to determine whether a full trial was
necessary. According to the text (Langvardt et al., 2019), summary judgment is a tool used by
the courts to dispose of a case for which there is no authentic or genuine issue of material fact.
According to RELX Inc (n.d.) the courts followed the rule that any objective person could not
reasonably determine that a television advertisement was actually an offer of a military jet that a
consumer could accept, and as such did not constitute fraud based on New York statute of frauds.
It is worth noting that a review of the original commercials certainly invoke humor, but the role
of the Plaintiff’s legal team was to present the case from the Plaintiff’s point of view. One might
think that Plaintiff Leonard was a genius given the fact that he was able to analyze the marketing
material to calculate what was needed to amass the stipulated 7,000,000 Pepsi Points without
having to consume approximately 190 Pepsis a day and his ability to raise ‘investment’ from his
associates in the amount of $700,000. And maybe that line of thinking is what prompted the
beverage giant to make the adjustment by increasing the Pepsi Points to 700,000,000 for the jet
and adding “Just Kidding” at the end of the commercial, hopefully, to deter any claim.
As such, Morales’ (2000) article began with how one might view television and other
commercials of that nature as humorous and outrageous. Morales (2000) points out that such
commercials have become commonplace in today’s America and that advertisers expect the
viewer to have a level of discernment in interpreting the message in their commercials. I opine
that the law should have a level of protection for “geniuses” like Plaintiff Leonard.