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Full-Text Articles in Law

Protecting Consumers As Sellers, Jim Hawkins Oct 2019

Protecting Consumers As Sellers, Jim Hawkins

Indiana Law Journal

When the majority of modern contract and consumer protection laws were written in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, consumers almost always acted as buyers, and businesses almost always acted as sellers. As a result, these laws reflect a model of strong sellers and weak buyers. But paradigms are shifting. Advances in technology and constraints on consumers’ financial lives have pushed consumers into new roles. Consumers today often act as sellers—hawking gold to make ends meet, peddling durable goods on eBay, or offering services in the sharing economy to make a profit. Consumers and business models have changed, but the laws …


Installation Failure: How The Predominant Purpose Test Has Perpetuated Software’S Uncertain Legal Status Under The Uniform Commercial Code, Spencer Gottlieb Mar 2015

Installation Failure: How The Predominant Purpose Test Has Perpetuated Software’S Uncertain Legal Status Under The Uniform Commercial Code, Spencer Gottlieb

Michigan Law Review

Courts have struggled to uniformly classify software as a good or a service and have consequently failed to apply a consistent body of law in that domain. Instead, courts have relied on the predominant purpose test to determine whether the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) or common law should apply to a given software contract. This test, designed for traditional goods and services that do not share software’s complexity or rapid advancement, has perpetuated the uncertainty surrounding software’s legal status. This Note proposes that courts adopt the substantial software test as an alternative to the predominant purpose test. Under this proposal, …


Bank Statements, Cancelled Checks, And Article Four In The Electronic Age, Norman Penney Jan 1967

Bank Statements, Cancelled Checks, And Article Four In The Electronic Age, Norman Penney

Michigan Law Review

My task was to prepare a short article dealing in some depth with specific problems which have arisen under Article Four of the Uniform Commercial Code (Code). Unfortunately for purposes of criticism, but happily for those affected by Article Four, a canvass of recent reported cases as well as bank operations people and bank counsel has revealed very few problems of any significance to either the general practitioner or even the so-called commercial law specialist. This prompts two comments: (1) Article Four seems to be working so smoothly that to develop a "problem" would be to make a mountain out …


Commercial Law--A Farmer Is Not A "Merchant" Under The Uniform Commercial Code--Cook Grains, Inc. V. Fallis, Michigan Law Review Jan 1966

Commercial Law--A Farmer Is Not A "Merchant" Under The Uniform Commercial Code--Cook Grains, Inc. V. Fallis, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff grain company allegedly entered into an oral contract to purchase 5,000 bushels of soybeans from the defendant farmer. The grain company signed a written integration of the alleged oral agreement and mailed it to the farmer, with a request for his signature. The farmer neither signed the document nor attempted to communicate with the grain company and later refused to deliver the soybeans pursuant to the terms of the plaintiff's memorandum. In an action for breach of contract, the grain company contended that the farmer was precluded from relying on the statute of frauds, as incorporated in the Uniform …