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The Sources And Consequences Of Disputes Over Contractual Meaning, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

With some frequency, parties agree to the particular words used in a contract they sign, only to later disagree as to the meaning of those words and their legal effect. That is, they each assent to something, but that “something” is something different for each of them. In this Article, I first categorize and trace the sources of recurring points of disagreement as a matter of language and linguistics. Then, I look at the consequences of a dispute that leads a fact finder to conclude that the parties genuinely did not agree to the same thing, which is to say …