Estoppel

Plain English

Estoppel is a fairness doctrine that stops someone from going back on what they've said or done if doing so would unfairly harm another person who relied on it. If you tell someone something is true and they reasonably rely on that statement to their detriment, you can't later claim it was false. Estoppel exists in several forms—equitable estoppel, collateral estoppel, and others—but they all share the idea that you can't blow hot and cold. Courts use estoppel to prevent people from playing unfair games with the legal system.

Example

A landlord tells a tenant the rent is $1,000 per month, and the tenant signs a lease and pays that amount for two years. The landlord can't suddenly claim the rent was always $1,500 because the tenant relied on the landlord's original statement.

Used in a sentence

“The defendant was estopped from denying liability because his own testimony at the first hearing contradicted his current claims.”

Related terms