Telespectrum Worldwide, Inc. v. Grace Marie Enterprises, Inc.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17608 (2000)
Telespectrum Worldwide, Inc. (plaintiff) agreed to provide telemarketing services for Grace Marie Enterprises, Inc. (Grace Marie) (defendant) on behalf of Grace Marie's political-campaign clients, but a server crash the weekend before election day left Telespectrum unable to transmit call data, causing Grace Marie to discount its clients' bills by $162,950. Grace Marie's clients ultimately paid it $828,164, on which Grace Marie's own profit margin was $282,123, and Grace Marie paid Telespectrum only $213,801 of its invoice. Telespectrum sued for the full remaining balance.
Whether a party that breached a contract through its own service failure may nonetheless recover, on a restitution theory, the value of the benefit conferred on the other party by its partial performance.