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A Short History Of The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, Gregory Klass
A Short History Of The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This document collects for ease of access and citation three of my posts on the New Private Law Blog, which chart the conceptual history of the interpretation-construction distinction. The posts begin with Francis Lieber’s 1939 introduction of the concepts, then describes Samual Williston’s 1920 account of the distinction in the first edition of Williston on Contracts, and concludes with Arthur Linton Corbin’s 1951 reconceptualization in the first edition of Corbin on Contracts. The posts identify two different conceptions of the distinction. Under the first (Lieber and Williston), construction supplements interpretation. Under the second (Corbin), the two activities complement one …
Contracting For Social Change, Adam N. Eckart
Contracting For Social Change, Adam N. Eckart
University of Miami Business Law Review
Throughout history, social change has often been shaped by high profile legislation and through high-stakes litigation. But social change can also be spurred on through private contract, including through the agreements businesses and individuals make with each other every day. Transactional attorneys can promote social change through drafting techniques and choices, including narrative and storytelling techniques, and can use such drafting techniques in order to 1) write better and more complete agreements that are more consistent with business-led social activism already taking place, and 2) influence society by forcing counterparties to evolve on social issues, change industry practice, or foster …
Downstreaming, Rachel Landy
Downstreaming, Rachel Landy
Articles
Spotify and its competitors all offer the same product at the same price. Why? Scholars have argued that relationships can be designed in a way that naturally promotes innovation. By “braiding” certain formal contracting practices with informal enforcement norms, parties develop a frame-work that supports trust and positive, long-term collaboration. This Article takes on this consensus and shows that not all braiding is good. Using the multibillion-dollar subscription music streaming business as an illustration, it demonstrates just how industry forces can, and do, overcome braiding’s positive slant. In that industry, the major record labels (Universal, Warner, and Sony) weaponize braiding …
Covid, Contracts, And Colleges, John K. Setear
Covid, Contracts, And Colleges, John K. Setear
West Virginia Law Review
No abstract provided.
Online Disinhibited Contracts, Wayne R. Barnes
Online Disinhibited Contracts, Wayne R. Barnes
Pepperdine Law Review
There have been at least two dominant forces at work in the realm of consumer contracting over the past several decades. One has been the rise and domination of the standard form contract (whereby merchants contract with consumers via the use of standardized, boilerplate terms and conditions that consumers do not read or understand). The second force has been the rise of e-commerce and the purchase of goods and services via websites and other online platforms, and the use of “wrap” formation methodology (whereby merchants obtain consumer assent to the online terms and conditions via the consumer’s informal click, scroll, …
Online Disinhibited Contracts, Wayne R. Barnes
Online Disinhibited Contracts, Wayne R. Barnes
Faculty Scholarship
There have been at least two dominant forces at work in the realm of consumer contracting over the past several decades. One has been the rise and domination of the standard form contract (whereby merchants contract with consumers via the use of standardized, boilerplate terms and conditions that consumers do not read or understand). The second force has been the rise of e-commerce and the purchase of goods and services via websites and other online platforms, and the use of “wrap” formation methodology (whereby merchants obtain consumer assent to the online terms and conditions via the consumer’s informal click, scroll, …
Contract-Wrapped Property, Danielle D'Onfro
Contract-Wrapped Property, Danielle D'Onfro
Scholarship@WashULaw
For nearly two centuries, the law has allowed servitudes that “run with” real property while consistently refusing to permit servitudes attached to personal property. That is, owners of land can establish new, specific requirements for the property that bind all future owners—but owners of chattels cannot. In recent decades, however, firms have increasingly begun relying on contract provisions that purport to bind future owners of chattels. These developments began in the context of software licensing, but they have started to migrate to chattels not encumbered by software. Courts encountering these provisions have mostly missed their significance, focusing instead on questions …
Beyond Discrimination: Market Humiliation And Private Law, Hila Keren
Beyond Discrimination: Market Humiliation And Private Law, Hila Keren
University of Colorado Law Review
Market humiliation is a corrosive relational process to which the law repeatedly fails to respond due to the law’s heavy reliance on the discrimination paradigm. In this process, providers of market resources, from housing and work to goods and services, use their powers to reject or mistreat other market users due to their identities. They thus cause users severe harm and deprive them of dignified participation in the marketplace. The problem has recently reached a peak. The discussion in 303 Creative v. Elenis indicates that the Supreme Court might legitimize market humiliation by granting private providers broad free speech exemptions …
Preparing Future Lawyers To Draft Contracts And Communicate With Clients In The Era Of Generative Ai, Kristen Wolff
Preparing Future Lawyers To Draft Contracts And Communicate With Clients In The Era Of Generative Ai, Kristen Wolff
Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law
No abstract provided.
Ok, Computer: Harnessing Ai In Contracts To Change How Our Students Will Practice And How We Will Teach, Mark E. Need
Ok, Computer: Harnessing Ai In Contracts To Change How Our Students Will Practice And How We Will Teach, Mark E. Need
Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law
No abstract provided.
Balancing Predictability With Flexibility In Contract Negotiation And Drafting, Tahirih V. Lee
Balancing Predictability With Flexibility In Contract Negotiation And Drafting, Tahirih V. Lee
Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law
No abstract provided.
The Future Of Unfair Terms Regulation In Commercial Contracts, Marcus Moore
The Future Of Unfair Terms Regulation In Commercial Contracts, Marcus Moore
All Faculty Publications
What is the future of unfair contract terms regulation? To date, regimes of unfair terms regulation have shared several key operational features, but have diverged on the question of the scope of regulation: some regimes focus on consumer contracts or exemption clauses, while other regimes include all commercial standard form contracts. Both domestic and transnational commerce would be well served by broader harmonisation of unfair terms regulation. But divergence on the basic question of the scope of regulation has hindered such harmonisation. Some important recent developments suggest a possible trend towards regulation of a scope which includes all standard form …
After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge
After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge
Faculty Scholarship
Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies spawned by the innovation of blockchain programming have exploded in prominence, both in gains of massive market value and in dramatic market losses, the latter most notably seen in connection with the failure of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022. After years of investment and speculation, however, something crucial has faded: the original use case for Bitcoin as a system of payment. Can cryptocurrency-as-a-payment-system be saved, or are day traders and speculators the actual cryptocurrency future? This article suggests that cryptocurrency has been hobbled by a lack of foundational commercial and consumer-protection law that …
Expecting Specific Performance, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, David Hoffman, Emily Campbell
Expecting Specific Performance, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, David Hoffman, Emily Campbell
Articles
Using a series of surveys and experiments, we find that ordinary people think that courts will give them exactly what they bargained for after breach of contract; in other words, specific performance is the expected contractual remedy. This expectation is widespread even for the diverse array of deals where the legal remedy is traditionally limited to money damages. But for a significant fraction of people, the focus on equity seems to be a naïve belief that is open to updating. In the studies reported here, individuals were less likely to anticipate specific performance when they were briefly introduced to the …
Defeating The Empire Of Forms, David Hoffman
Defeating The Empire Of Forms, David Hoffman
Articles
For generations, contract scholars have waged a faint-hearted campaign against form contracts. It’s widely believed that adhesive forms are unread and chock full of terms that courts will not, or should not, enforce. Most think that the market for contract terms is broken, for both employees and consumer adherents. And yet forms are so embedded in our economy that it’s hard to imagine modern commercial life without them. Scholars thus push calibrated, careful solutions that walk a deeply rutted path. Notwithstanding hundreds of proposals calling for their retrenchment, the empire of forms has continued to advance into new areas of …
Exit Engineering, Rachel Landy
Exit Engineering, Rachel Landy
Articles
How do business lawyers create value? For nearly forty years, scholars have conceptualized the business lawyer as a “transaction cost engineer” who helps contracting parties efficiently break negotiation stalemates to create more valuable deals. This theory provides meaningful insights about sophisticated corporate law practice, where outside lawyers parachute in to make one-off deals happen. However, it fails to explain the behavior of startup lawyers, who develop long-term relationships with their clients and counsel them on seemingly routine matters, well before a major transaction materializes. These lawyers are not just transaction cost engineers, they are exit engineers.This Article offers a novel …
Stopping Runs In The Digital Era, Luís C. Calderón Gómez
Stopping Runs In The Digital Era, Luís C. Calderón Gómez
Articles
Bank runs, and the financial crises they catalyze and amplify, are incredibly costly-to individuals, families, society, and the economy writ large. Banking regulation has, for the most part, protected us from traditional bank runs for the last ninety years. However, as we saw in the devastating 2008 financial crisis, bank runs can still occur in lightly regulated or opaque segments of the financial sector.
The recent crypto market downturn dramatically forewarned regulators of the potential and significant risks that novel assets could pose to our financial system's stability. In particular, a novel, systemically important asset (stablecoins) revealed its vulnerability to …
We Are Never Getting Back Together: A Statutory Framework For Reconciling Artist/Label Relationships, Harrison Simons
We Are Never Getting Back Together: A Statutory Framework For Reconciling Artist/Label Relationships, Harrison Simons
Washington Law Review Online
Taylor Swift could tell you a thing or two about record label drama. Artists like Swift who want to break into the big leagues and top the charts must rely on record labels’ deep pockets and institutional knowledge to do so. But artists, especially young ones, are often asked to sign deals with labels that leave them with little control over their careers. For many, the risk is worth the reward. However, many others come to regret their decision, with careers that languish or sputter out in label purgatory. Anyone with an ear for the music industry knows that artist-label …
Standards And The Law, Cary Coglianese
Standards And The Law, Cary Coglianese
All Faculty Scholarship
The world of standards and the world of laws are often seen as separate, but they are more closely intertwined than many professionals working with laws or standards realize. Although standards are typically considered to be voluntary and non-binding, they can intersect with and affect the law in numerous ways. They can serve as benchmarks for determine liability in tort or contract. They can facilitate domestic and international transactions. They can prompt negotiations over the licensing of patents. They can govern the development of forensic evidence admissible in criminal courts. And standards can even become binding law themselves when they …
Employer Tuition Assistance: Current Approaches And The Application Of The Implied Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing, Jordan T. Krieger
Employer Tuition Assistance: Current Approaches And The Application Of The Implied Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing, Jordan T. Krieger
Northwestern University Law Review
American corporations are increasingly expanding tuition reimbursement programs, potentially improving access to higher education for American workers. Yet, despite their increasing availability, only 2% of employees, as a percentage of those interested in pursuing further education, are utilizing these reimbursement programs. For those employees who do make use of these reimbursement programs, they may face unexpected challenges to accessing judicial remedies if a dispute arises.
This Note takes an interdisciplinary approach to first explore employee risks and employer incentives under tuition reimbursement programs. On the employee side, a worker risks premature termination by expressing an interest in tuition reimbursement because …
Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl
Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law Review
The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.
To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …
Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl
Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.
To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …
Fixing Standard-Form Contracts, Shirly Levy
Fixing Standard-Form Contracts, Shirly Levy
University of Cincinnati Law Review
Consumers are at a disadvantage when it comes to standard-form contracts – information gaps, weak bargaining power, and behavioral biases are all at work against them. Moreover, in the digital age, many consumers do not even attempt to read the lengthy contracts they instantaneously approve. Manipulation by sophisticated commercial parties is therefore guaranteed.
The literature offers various ways to alleviate this problem, including nudges and carefully crafted contractual default rules, but the question remains - how can the content of a consumer contract that no one reads be improved? This article draws lessons from the financial market, where shareholders and …
Choice Of Law And Time, Part Ii: Choice Of Law Clauses And Changing Law, Jeffrey L. Rensberger
Choice Of Law And Time, Part Ii: Choice Of Law Clauses And Changing Law, Jeffrey L. Rensberger
Georgia State University Law Review
Modern choice of law analysis usually honors the parties’ contractual choice of governing law. But what happens when the law selected by the parties changes between the time of their contracting and the time of litigation? Or what if the law of the state whose law would otherwise apply changes so that its policy is now offended by the choice of law clause although its policy was not violated when the parties contracted? These questions raise the often-overlooked temporal aspect of choice of law analysis. Should courts regard the law to be applied as fixed to the time of the …
What’S In The Contract?: Rockefeller, The Hague Service Convention, And Serving Process Abroad, Thomas G. Vanderbeek
What’S In The Contract?: Rockefeller, The Hague Service Convention, And Serving Process Abroad, Thomas G. Vanderbeek
Vanderbilt Law Review
Today’s global economy relies on transnational commerce. The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (“Hague Service Convention”), implemented in 1965, encouraged transnational commerce by establishing a streamlined mechanism for serving foreign parties with process. More reliable international service methods helped ensure parties that they could resolve disputes with foreign parties through the courts. The Hague Service Convention thus created a bridge between civil and common law procedures on service while reducing some of the risks of engaging in business with foreign parties.
At the same time, the Hague Service Convention frequently …
Is There Force In Force Majeure After Covid-19 Or In The Freedom To Negotiate Risk?, Sara Lazarevic
Is There Force In Force Majeure After Covid-19 Or In The Freedom To Negotiate Risk?, Sara Lazarevic
University of Miami Inter-American Law Review
This note explores the impact COVID–19 has had on contracting parties who have attempted to implicate force majeure provisions. An inquiry of recent cases reveals varying degrees of success and tension when parties turn towards force majeure text. This Note analyzes common law alternatives, discusses the implication of force majeure clauses as applied under Mexican and American law, highlights the implications that have played out in recent court decisions, and discusses post–pandemic implications that could affect how parties conduct cross–border transactions in the future.
Hard Truths: Cracking Open The Case Of Whether Hard Seltzer Is Beer, Scott Fraser
Hard Truths: Cracking Open The Case Of Whether Hard Seltzer Is Beer, Scott Fraser
University of Miami Law Review
Following the line of cases asking questions such as what is a chicken, and is a burrito a sandwich, comes the next deep legal issue, what is beer? How do we determine this seemingly simple question? Do we simply know it when we see (or taste) it? Does it require a mix of specific ingredients or certain processes? Or, if we should rely on definitions, do we look to the dictionary, history, or statutes? In a dispute in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the court is asked to resolve this question. Courts have …
Gender Inequality In Contracts Casebooks: Representations Of Women In The Contracts Curriculum, Deborah Zalesne
Gender Inequality In Contracts Casebooks: Representations Of Women In The Contracts Curriculum, Deborah Zalesne
FIU Law Review
Gender has always explicitly or implicitly played a critical role in contracting and in contracts opinions—from the early nineteenth century, when married women lacked the legal capacity altogether to contract, through the next century, when women gained the right to contract but continued to lack bargaining power and to be disadvantaged in the bargaining process in many cases, to today, when women are present in greater numbers in business and commerce, but face continued, yet less overt, obstacles. Typical casebooks provide ample offerings for discussions of the ways in which parties can be and have been disadvantaged because of their …
Provisional Measures In Aid Of Arbitration, Ronald A. Brand
Provisional Measures In Aid Of Arbitration, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The success of the New York Convention has made arbitration a preferred means of dispute resolution for international commercial transactions. Success in arbitration often depends on the extent to which a party may secure assets, evidence, or the status quo between parties prior to the completion of the arbitration process. This makes the availability of provisional measures granted by either arbitral tribunals or by courts fundamental to the arbitration. In this Article, I consider the existing legal framework for provisional measures in aid of arbitration, with particular attention to the sources of the rules providing for such measures. Those sources …
Total Return Meltdown: The Case For Treating Total Return Swaps As Disguised Secured Transactions, Colin P. Marks
Total Return Meltdown: The Case For Treating Total Return Swaps As Disguised Secured Transactions, Colin P. Marks
Faculty Articles
Archegos Capital Management, at its height, had $35 billion in assets. But in the spring of 2021, in part through its use of total return swaps, Archegos sparked a $30 billion dollar sell-off that left many of the world's largest banks footing the bill. Mitsubishi UFJ Group estimated a loss of $300 million; UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, lost $861 million; Morgan Stanley lost $911 million; Japan's Nomura lost $2.85 billion; but the biggest hit came to Credit Suisse Group AG, which lost $5.5 billion. Archegos itself lost $20 billion over two days. The unique characteristics of total return swaps and …