Law Commons^™

Penumbral Academic Freedom: Interpreting The Tenure Contract In A Time Of Constitutional Impotence, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

This article recounts the deficiencies of constitutional law and common tenure contract language - the latter based on the 1940 Statement of Principles of the American Association of University Professors - in protecting the academic freedom of faculty on the modern university campus. The article proposes an Interpretation of that common language, accompanied by Illustrations, aiming to describe the penumbras of academic freedom - faculty rights and responsibilities that surround and emanate from the three traditional pillars of teaching, research, and service - that are within the scope of the tenure contract but not explicitly described by it, and therefore …

Williston As Conservative-Pragmatist, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

In her pathbreaking article, "Restatement and Reform: A New Perspective on the Origins of the American Law Institute, Professor N.E.H. Hull rejects the conventional wisdom about the conservative, even reactionary, character of the First Restatements. The truth, she argues, is more subtle. The Restatements, and the larger ALI project of which they were a part, reflect the "'progressive-pragmatic"' worldview of the law professors most responsible for their creation. These professors were reformers. They rejected the formalism of earlier generations; for them, law was not a conceptual system but a practical tool for promoting beneficial social goals. They tempered their zeal …

Formalism In American Contract Law: Classical And Contemporary, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

It is a universally acknowledged truth that we live in a formalist era—at least when it comes to American contract law. Much more than the jurisprudence of a generation ago, today's cutting-edge work in American contract scholarship values the formalist virtues of bright-line rules, objective interpretation, and party autonomy. Policing bargains for substantive fairness seems more and more an outdated notion. Courts, it is thought, should refrain from interfering with market exchanges. Private arbitration has displaced courts in the context of many traditional contract disputes. Even adhesion contracts find their defenders, much to the chagrin of communitarian scholars.

This is …

Rediscovering Williston, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

This Article is an intellectual history of classical contracts scholar Samuel Williston. Professor Movsesian argues that the conventional account of Williston's jurisprudence presents an incomplete and distorted picture. While much of Williston's work can strike a contemporary reader as arid and conceptual, there are strong elements of pragmatism as well. Williston insists that doctrine be justified in terms of real-world consequences, maintains that rules can have only presumptive force, and offers institutional explanations for judicial restraint. As a result, his scholarship shares more in common with today's new formalism than commonly supposed. Even the under-theorized quality of Williston's scholarship—to contemporary …

Two Cheers For Freedom Of Contract, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Once, they say, freedom of contract reigned in American law. Parties could make agreements on a wide variety of subjects and choose the terms they wished. Courts would refrain from questioning the substance of bargains and would ensure only that parties had observed the proper formalities. In interpretation, objectivity was paramount. Courts would seek to ascertain, not what the parties had intended, but what a reasonable observer would understand the parties' words to mean. Contract law was a series of abstractions informed by individual autonomy and judicial deference.

This world, a classical paradise of doctrines with sharp corners, began to …

Tortious Interference And The Law Of Contract: The Case For Specific Performance Revisited, Deepa Varadarajan

Faculty Publications

What is the role of contract law in remedying breach? The question of the appropriate legal remedy, specific performance versus money damages, has provided adequate fodder for three decades of debate in the law and economics discourse. In the legal discipline at large, the topic has spurred centuries of debate, as illustrated by Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous line: “The only universal consequence of a legally binding promise is, that the law makes the promisor pay damages if the promised event does not come to pass.” Holmes's approach to contractual remedy would evolve during the latter half of the twentieth century …

Section 365 In The Consumer Context: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Michael G. Hillinger, Ingrid Michelsen Hillinger

Faculty Publications

The § 365 consumer debtor case law has a further complication. Much of it arises in the context of the last great bankruptcy frontier, Chapter 13. Until recently, Chapter 11 has occupied the minds and hearts of courts and attorneys. Not any more. And, as attorneys and courts take a closer, harder look at Chapter 13, it is no longer possible to describe it as a “streamlined creditors-can’t-vote Chapter 11”. Chapter 13 is unique, presenting its very own quandaries, not the least of which is how its provisions and § 365 interact. We live in interesting times.

Are Statutes Really "Legislative Bargains"? The Failure Of The Contract Analogy In Statutory Interpretation, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Recent scholarship draws an analogy between contract and statutory interpretation. In this Article, Professor Movsesian explores and rejects that analogy. There are key differences between contracts and statutes, he argues; the intentionalism of contemporary contract law is inappropriate in the context of statutory interpretation. After critically examining the literature on the topic and demonstrating the operative distinctions between contracts and statutes, Professor Movsesian provides a useful illustration in the form of the famous case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States. Professor Movsesian shows how a comparison of contract and statutory interpretation sheds light on a number of …

Severability In Statutes And Contracts, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Established doctrine on the severability of unconstitutional statutory provisions has drawn criticism on almost every conceivable basis. Commentators have condemned severability doctrine as too malleable and as too rigid; as encouraging judicial overreaching and as encouraging judicial abdication. They have criticized the doctrine's reliance on legislative intent and its disregard of legislative intent; its excessive attention to political concerns and its inattention to political concerns; its lack of any coherent explanation.

The reasons for this lingering controversy are easy to discern. One is purely pragmatic. "We live in an age of statutes." Legislation provides our primary source of law in …

The Efficacy Of Guaranty Contracts In Sophisticated Commercial Transactions, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

Even though contracts of guaranty are not subject to uniform standards of interpretation throughout the states, both case law and statutory development have tended to evidence a strong sympathy for the guarantor. In spite of this trend, Professor Alces suggests that creditors' counsel can, through careful drafting, do much to assure the enforceability of the guaranty contract. A scrupulously structured guaranty contract, one that anticipates possible defenses to liability in explicit terms, may well be upheld, even in cases in which guarantors occupied weak negotiating positions vis-a-vis creditors. Moreover, the attack on the guaranty as a fraudulent conveyance under section …