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Full-Text Articles in Law
Cross Purposes & Unintended Consequences--Karl Llewellyn, Article 2 And The Limits Of Social Transformation, Danielle K. Hart
Cross Purposes & Unintended Consequences--Karl Llewellyn, Article 2 And The Limits Of Social Transformation, Danielle K. Hart
Danielle K Hart
Despite attempts to reform the law to eliminate hierarchies that subordinate groups of people, the law usually ends up reinstantiating those hierarchies. This “preservation through transformation” phenomenon occurs consistently, over time and across legal disciplines. Karl Llewellyn’s efforts at drafting Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code are no different. Llewellyn attempted a paradigm shift in contract formation when he sought to decouple contract law from its formalistic roots and bring it back in touch with reality on the ground. But in so doing, the law-in-action strand of Legal Realism ended up working at cross purposes with the other, critical …
Contract Law Now--Reality Meets Legal Fictions, Danielle K. Hart
Contract Law Now--Reality Meets Legal Fictions, Danielle K. Hart
Danielle K Hart
Modern contract law is designed to achieve a fundamental objective, namely, to ensure that voluntary agreements between private parties are legally binding. The appropriateness of this objective and the assumptions underlying it are rarely questioned. Legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike presuppose that the binding-nature of contracts is a desirable and a positive feature of our legal system. But are the assumptions underlying the modern contract system sound? Do people behave in the way that contract law supposes? And are the concepts of voluntary, informed consent and freedom from state interference really the hallmarks of the modern contract system? This …
Smoke, Mirrors & Contract Law, Danielle K. Hart
Smoke, Mirrors & Contract Law, Danielle K. Hart
Danielle K Hart
Abstract: Contract law is set up to be transaction enforcing, that is, to be binding. Binding means two different but related things. First, “binding” means that the contract is valid as between the parties (because it satisfies contract law’s formation requirements) and, second, it means that the rights and obligations set forth in that contract will be enforced by the state on behalf of one of the parties over the objection of the other, now resisting party. Modern contract law uses several well-established assumptions about the contracting parties, including the way they behave when contracting, and the roles of the …