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Illegal Agreements And The Lesser Evil Principle, Chunlin Leonhard
Illegal Agreements And The Lesser Evil Principle, Chunlin Leonhard
Chunlin Leonhard
Illegal agreement disputes force U.S. courts to wrestle with multiple competing interests. The courts’ approach has been generally explained and understood in terms of the general rule of non-enforcement of illegal agreements with numerous exceptions. The case law on this topic has been described as “a vast, confusing and rather mysterious area of the law.” This article offers the insight that, contrary to common belief, courts’ approach to illegal agreements shows a consistent pattern. A review of randomly selected cases shows that the courts have by and large consistently (albeit implicitly) applied the lesser evil principle in resolving the disputes. …
A Legal Chameleon -- An Examination Of The Good Faith Doctrine In Chinese And U.S. Contract Laws, Chunlin Leonhard
A Legal Chameleon -- An Examination Of The Good Faith Doctrine In Chinese And U.S. Contract Laws, Chunlin Leonhard
Chunlin Leonhard
When China promulgated its first comprehensive contract law a decade ago, it ostensibly adopted the good faith doctrine as a basic contract law principle. The Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China (“Chinese Contract Law”) requires that parties observe good faith as a general principle. The U.S. contract law has also generally recognized the good faith doctrine as a “fundamental concept of modern contract jurisprudence.” Advocates on both sides of the Pacific praise the doctrine for its elasticity and adaptability which allow the courts to use the doctrine to fill in gaps where necessary. Detractors on both sides of …
Identifying Fungible Goods Under The Ucc Through A Contextual Lens, Chunlin Leonhard, John M. Wunderlich
Identifying Fungible Goods Under The Ucc Through A Contextual Lens, Chunlin Leonhard, John M. Wunderlich
Chunlin Leonhard
Economic downturn causes warehouses to fill up with goods. Many of these goods are fungible products. Some have been purchased, some not. But how these fungible goods are identified in these warehouses – separated and segregated out – for particular customers is of vital importance in certain circumstances. This article seeks to clarify one of those elusive legal concepts under the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) as it pertains to sales contracts: the identification of fungible goods. Under UCC Article 2, parties’ rights and obligations sometimes depend on whether the goods have been identified to the contract. A survey of the …
Beyond The Four Corners Of A Written Contract: A Global Challenge To U.S. Contract Law, Chunlin Leonhard
Beyond The Four Corners Of A Written Contract: A Global Challenge To U.S. Contract Law, Chunlin Leonhard
Chunlin Leonhard
U.S. contract law has developed on the basis of certain essential assumptions such as freedom of contract, autonomy and liberal individualism. Because of those basic assumptions, U.S. contract law primarily concerns itself with only protecting the resulting bargain reached by the parties. Relying on a set of well entrenched contract interpretation and construction principles, U.S. courts will generally refuse to look beyond the four corners of the written contract. Hence, in a U.S. court, a party is entitled to enforce terms of a written contact to the letter. U.S. contract law’s underlying assumptions, however, reflect the core values of the …