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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 …