Law Commons^™

"Contracting" For Credit, Ronald J. Mann

Michigan Law Review

On a recent day, I used my credit cards in connection with a number of minor transactions. I made eight purchases, and I paid two credit card bills. I also discarded (without opening) three solicitations for new cards, balance transfer programs, or other similar offers to extend credit via a credit card. Statistics suggest that I am not atypical. U.S. consumers last year used credit cards in about 100 purchasing transactions per capita, with an average value of about $70. At the end of the year, Americans owed nearly $500 billion dollars, in the range of $1,800 for every man, …

The Return Of Bargain: An Economic Theory Of How Standard-Form Contracts Enable Cooperative Negotiation Between Businesses And Consumers, Jason Scott Johnston

Michigan Law Review

Among attorneys, judges, and legal academics, there is virtual consensus that the widespread use by business firms of standard-form contracts in their dealings with consumers has completely eliminated bargaining in consumer contracts. I believe that this perception is false, that rather than precluding bargaining and negotiation, standard-form contracts in fact facilitate bargaining and are a crucial instrument in the establishment and maintenance of cooperative relationships between firms and their customers. On this view, which I elaborate below, firms use clear and unconditional standard form contract terms not because they will insist upon those terms, but because they have given their …

Private Legislation And The Duty To Read--Business Run By Ibm Machine, The Law Of Contracts And Credit Cards, Stewart Macaulay

Vanderbilt Law Review

"It will not do for a man to enter into a contract, and, when called upon to abide by its conditions, say that he did not read it when he signed it, or did not know what it contained."' This rallying cry often is sounded in contracts and restitution opinions. Sometimes it makes such good sense that it is axiomatic. Yet in common with all grand slogans, there are situations where it just doesn't fit...

More difficult are the cases where the words are there in a form more easily read and understood but where the probabilities are very great …