Law Commons^™

The Perverse Consequences Of Disclosing Standard Terms, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

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Although assent is the doctrinal and theoretical hallmark of contract, its relevance for form contracts has been drastically undermined by the overwhelming evidence that no one reads standard terms. Until now, most political and academic discussions of this phenomenon have acknowledged the truth of universally unread contracts, but have assumed that even unread terms are at best potentially helpful, and at worst harmless. This Article makes the empirical case that unread terms are not a neutral part of American commerce; instead, the mere fact of fine print inhibits reasonable challenges to unfair deals. The experimental study reported here tests the …

From Promise To Form: How Contracting Online Changes Consumers, David A. Hoffman

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I hypothesize that different experiences with online contracting have led some consumers to see contracts—both online and offline—in distinctive ways. Experimenting on a large, nationally representative sample, this paper provides evidence of age-based and experience-based differences in views of consumer contract formation and breach. I show that younger subjects who have entered into more online contracts are likelier than older ones to think that contracts can be formed online, that digital contracts are legitimate while oral contracts are not, and that contract law is unforgiving of breach.

I argue that such individual differences in views of contract formation and enforceability …

How Relevant Is Jury Rationality?, David A. Hoffman

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This essay reviews Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide by Cass Sunstein, et al. The book provides a good example of a recent trend: the use of behavioralist research to justify surprisingly paternalistic legal reforms. While critics of behavioralism often contend that its theoretical foundations are weak, this approach is unlikely to prove an effective rejoinder in the new debate about what kinds of paternalism are made permissible by human "irrationality". A better approach: (1) notes the lack of a nexus between behavioralism and the supposed emergent necessity of paternalist reforms; and (2) suggests that juror unwillingness to apply cost-benefit formula …