N54 legal: can you pursue an eBay seller for "damages " if they won't deliver a card

[nolemmings]

My two cents.

Leaving aside practical considerations, a buyer could sue for damages if there was an offer and acceptance, subject to contractual defenses and assuming that there is nothing in Ebay's rules that limits a buyer's remedies. In theory, if the card were sufficiently scarce, a buyer could even sue for specific performance--a judgment compelling turnover of the card. Otherwise, the remedies provided by contract law and/or the UCC would allow the buyer to recover damages for either the difference between market price and price offered or, if a comparable substitute were purchased within a reasonable time, for the difference in price the buyer was required to pay and what he would have paid had the first transaction consummated (oftentimes called "cover"). Some consequential damages may also be recoverable.

The above is conceptual more than practical, as the UCC analysis does not fit nicely with sportscard collecting. It presupposes a sufficiently developed market where "market price" is at least somewhat readily determinable and, similarly, where a "reasonable" time for cover can be ascertained using industry standards or customs that might even be measured empirically. Also and has been discussed in other threads, there may be questions of which State's law applies (although the UCC has been adopted pretty much nationally in about the same form- the"U" is for Uniform), and again, whether there are legal or contractual defenses. Still, from a strictly legal perspective, a damages claim could likely be asserted.