Cohen v. Cowles Media (1992)

Dan Cohen (born 1936) was active in the Republican 1982 campaign of Wheelock Whitney Jr. (1926 - 2016) for governorship in the state of Minnesota.

Cohen had documents regarding the criminal history of Marlene Johnson (born 1946 - ) , the candidate for the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. He gave the documents to 2 newspapers provided that they would keep his identity confidential.

The editors of the newspapers published's Cohen's involvement in finding the documents. As a result, Cohen's employer fired him.

SCOTUS remands Cohen v. Cowles Media (1991) to the state of Minnesota which becomes this 1992 case.

Cohen sued Cowles Media Co. for fraudulent mis-representation & breach of contract.

The Minnesota trial court awarded damages to Cohen.

Can promissory estoppel be used to award damages to a confidential source injured by a newspaper's broken promise of anonymity?

Yes. If a source (Mr. Cohen) acts in reliance on the press's promise of confidentiality & is thereby injured, the court can award damages if that's the way to remedy the injustice.

The trial jury's award of $200,000 is reasonable & reinstated.

The promisee (Cohen) has suffered harm at his job as a result of relying on the newspapers' promise to grant him anonymity.

The newspaper editors published Cohen's name even though the reporters had made & intended to keep Cohen's name confidential.