Law Commons^™

Global Aerospace, Inc. Order On Defendant's Motion To Compel Discovery, Elizabeth E. Long

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Restitution Of Mistaken Enrichment Under Section 73 Of Malaysia's Contracts Act 1950: Pouring New Wine Into An Old Bottle?, Alvin W. L. See

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article makes two main suggestions regarding the interpretation of s 73 of Malaysia's Contracts Act 1950, which sets out the right to recover a mistaken enrichment. The first suggestion is that the courts should have regard to the historical background against which the section was enacted, especially because the pre-enactment common law was a historical curiosity. This will dispel certain misconceptions about the nature of the statutory right by shedding light on its supposed affinity with contract and its relationship with the obsolete forms of action and the principle of unjust enrichment. The second suggestion is that the content …

The Future Of Fault In Contract Law, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

According to judicial opinions, the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, and some analysts, the reasons for failing to perform a contract, whether willful, negligent, or unavoidable, have little or no bearing in determining contract liability. Contract liability is said to be “strict,” meaning that the reasons for nonperformance are irrelevant in determining the injured party’s rights. In this Article, I argue that the reasons for failing to perform, which focus on whether non-performance is the promisor’s fault, are crucially important in the resolution of many, perhaps most disputes under contract law.

Contracts Symposium Issue: Featured Speaker: The Right To Contract As A Civil Right, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The "right to contract," whether originating in the Constitution, common law, or natural law, has been long and widely felt to be in tension with our civil rights, broadly conceived. The individual himself, we generally believe, and only the individual, should decide the scope and terms of his affirmative, voluntary, and other-regarding undertakings. When he does so through contract, the individual and only the individual should determine the terms under which he will perform those duties. The civil rights laws of the nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries, and the various rights they create interfere with these natural freedoms.

So, …

Subject To Review? Consideration, Liquidated Damages And The Penalty Jurisdiction, Eliza Mik

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The paper examines the relationship between what seem to be basic principles in contract law: "consideration need not be adequate" and "the rule against penalties applies only to sums payable on breach." The 'reluctant inspiration' lies in the recent Australian case of Andrews v. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, which establishes that the absence of breach or an obligation to avoid the occurrence of an event upon which a sum becomes payable, does not render such sum incapable of being characterized as a penalty. This decision constitutes an unexpected divergence from the position in most other common law …

Order On Defendant's Motion To Dismiss Plaintiffs' Verified Complaint (Harmony Land Company, Llc Et Al.), Elizabeth E. Long

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Order Granting Interlocutory Injunction (Runzhou Zhang Et Al.), Melvin K. Westmoreland

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Discretion, D. Gordon Smith, Jordan C. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

Discretion is an important feature of all contractual relationships. In this Article, we rely on incomplete contract theory to motivate our study of discretion, with particular attention to fiduciary relationships. We make two contributions to the substantial literature on fiduciary law. First, we describe the role of fiduciary law as “boundary enforcement,” and we urge courts to honor the appropriate exercise of discretion by fiduciaries, even when the beneficiary or the judge might perceive a preferable action after the fact. Second, we answer the question, how should a court define the boundaries of fiduciary discretion? We observe that courts often …

Order On Defendants' Motion To Compel Against Non-Party Wells Fargo (Global Aerospace Inc.), Elizabeth E. Long

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Order On Valuation Of Shares Under Shareholder Agreement (Justin Fouse Et Al.), John J. Goger

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

The Essential Role Of Courts For Supporting Innovation, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Christopher R. Drahozal

Scholarly Publications

Commercial parties commonly resolve their disputes in arbitration rather than courts. In fact, some estimate that as many as 90 percent of international commercial contracts opt for arbitration of future disputes, and others claim that some industries never resort to courts. However, a study of arbitration clauses in a wide variety of contracts, including franchise agreements, CEO employment contracts, technology contracts, joint venture agreements and consumer cell phone contracts, reveals that parties very often carve out a right to resort to courts for the resolution of claims designed to protect information, innovation, and reputation. Studies of international and cross-border contracts …

Less Than I Wanted To Know: Why Do Ben-Shahar And Schneider Attack Only 'Mandated' Disclosure?, Margaret Jane Radin

Law & Economics Working Papers

This essay responds to a new book by Omri Ben Shahar and Carl E. Schneider, entitled MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW: THE FAILURE OF MANDATED DISCLOSURE (Princeton, 2014). The book is an elaborate disclosure of why disclosure fails. It is hard to disagree with the fact that widespread deficits in consumer reading, understanding and decisionmaking undermine the efficacy of disclosures, and the book provides plenty of data to show this. But the authors do not much confront the fact that many mandates for disclosures are a response to what happens when firms are free to design their own fine …

Summary Of Schleining V. Cap One, Inc., 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 36, Laura Guidry

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined two issues: 1) whether NRS 40.453 invalidates a guarantor’s contractual waiver of the statutory right to be mailed a notice of default and 2) whether NRS 107.095 requires strict or substantial compliance by lenders giving notice of default, and if substantial compliance is sufficient, whether there was substantial compliance in this case.

Summary Of Lavi V. Eighth Judicial District Court, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 38, Danielle Barraza

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether waiver of the “one-action rule” of NRS 40.430 terminates the procedural requirements for bringing a deficiency judgment action within six months of foreclosure under NRS 40.455.

Summary Of Century Sur. Co. V. Casino W., Inc., 130 Adv. Nev. Op. 42, Michael Paretti

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The court determined whether two distinct provisions of an insurance policy regarding air pollution were subject to multiple reasonable interpretations.

Terms Of Use: Reflections On A Theme, Eliza Mik

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The paper presents multiple perspectives on the unpopular but omnipresent terms of use (or "ToUs"), i.e. terms and conditions contained in a link at the bottom of many websites. ToUs serve different functions: from governing the transaction taking place on a website, (e.g. contracts of sale) to the very act of browsing. Accordingly, every browsing experience has both a commercial and a legal tint. On a theoretical level ToUs raise concerns with regards to their validity as legally binding contracts as well as to their incorporation. Both formation and incorporation converge on the presence and quality of contractual intention. The …

Licence Agreements And Copyright: An Examination Of The Issues, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

In this presentation I will discuss some of the factors that are relevant to an understanding of the relationship between copyright and private ordering of legal obligations such as licensing agreements and technological protection measures. I will conclude that there is a strong argument to be made that provisions purporting to limit fair dealing and other exceptions may be unenforceable.

Common Capital: A Thought Experiment In Cross-Border Resolution, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cross-border bank resolution efforts focus on burden-sharing between bank owners, private creditors and the public. There is little talk of burden-sharing among governments, despite the rich history of governments trying to stick one another with the cost of financial conglomerate failures. There is an unspoken fear that acknowledging the need to allocate losses among governments would undermine post-crisis pledges of No More Bailouts. This symposium essay argues for making government stakes in private financial firms more transparent, and for using the contingent public share as a key to loss allocation among governments in cross-border banking crises.

Order On Motions To Compel Discovery (Southern Telecom Inc.), Melvin K. Westmoreland

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Order On Defendant's Motion To Dismiss (Pacific Bepure Industry Inc.), Alice D. Bonner

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

A Psychological Account Of Consent To Fine Print, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

The moral and social norms that bear on contracts of adhesion suggest a deep ambivalence. Contracts are perceived as serious moral obligations, and yet they must be taken lightly or everyday commerce would be impossible. Most people see consent to boilerplate as less meaningful than consent to negotiated terms, but they nonetheless would hold consumers strictly liable for both. This Essay aims to unpack the beliefs, preferences, assumptions, and biases that constitute our assessments of assent to boilerplate. Research suggests that misgivings about procedural defects in consumer contracting weigh heavily on judgments of contract formation, but play almost no role …

Order On Various Motions (Justin Fouse Et Al.), John J. Goger

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Order On Various Motions (Global Aerospace, Inc.), Elizabeth E. Long

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Demand For Breach, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

These studies elicit behavioral evidence for how people weigh monetary and non-monetary incentives in efficient breach. Study 1 is an experimental game designed to capture the salient features of the efficient breach decision. Subjects in a behavioral lab were offered different amounts of money to break the deal they had made with a partner. 18.6% of participants indicated willingness to break a deal for any amount of profit, 27.9% were unwilling to breach for the highest payout, and the remaining subjects identified a break-point in between. Study 2 is an online questionnaire asking subjects to take the perspectives of buyers …

Order On Second Motion To Show Cause And Renewed Motion To Remove Trustees, Melvin K. Westmoreland

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Regulating Sovereign Wealth Funds Through Contract, Naveen Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Debt-Buyer Lawsuits And Inaccurate Data, Peter A. Holland

Faculty Scholarship

Pursuant to secret purchase and sale agreements (also known as forward flow agreements), the accounts that banks sell to debt buyers are often sold “as is,” with explicit and emphatic disclaimers that the debts may not be owed, the amounts claimed may not be accurate, and documentation may be missing. Despite their full knowledge that the accuracy and completeness of the data has been specifically disclaimed by the bank, when they sue consumers, debt buyers tell courts that the information obtained from the bank is inherently reliable and accurate. In order to avoid a fraud on the courts, the contents …

Efficient Breach, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The theory of efficient breach is the best known, and the most controversial, product of nearly half a century of economic analysis of contract law. In its simplest form, which is the one that dominates the legal imagination, the theory argues that expectation damages are good because they allow, even encourage, a party to breach when performance becomes inefficient, thereby increasing social welfare. Many noneconomists assume the theory is well supported by principles of neoclassical economics. Thus critics commonly focus on the theory’s moral failings, or on problems with the neoclassical approach more generally. But today no economic thinker defends …

Killing Conscience: The Unintended Behavioral Consequences Of "Pay For Performance", Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Contemporary lawmakers and reformers often argue that ex ante incentive contracts providing for large material rewards are the best and possibly only way to motivate corporate executives and other employees to serve their firms' interests. This Article offers a critique of the "pay for performance" approach. In particular, it explores why, for a variety of mutually reinforcing reasons, workplaces that rely on ex ante incentive contracts suppress unselfish prosocial behavior (conscience) and promote selfishness and opportunism. The end result may not be more efficient, but more uncooperative, unethical, and illegal employee behavior.

Summary Of Progressive Gulf Ins. Co. V. Faehnrich, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 19, Jeffrey Pike

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether Nevada public policy precludes giving effect to a choice-of-law provision in an insurance contract made by parties residing outside Nevada that would deny Nevada residents injured in Nevada recovery under NRS 485.3091.