Contracts Commons^™

Defeating The Empire Of Forms, David Hoffman

Articles

For generations, contract scholars have waged a faint-hearted campaign against form contracts. It’s widely believed that adhesive forms are unread and chock full of terms that courts will not, or should not, enforce. Most think that the market for contract terms is broken, for both employees and consumer adherents. And yet forms are so embedded in our economy that it’s hard to imagine modern commercial life without them. Scholars thus push calibrated, careful solutions that walk a deeply rutted path. Notwithstanding hundreds of proposals calling for their retrenchment, the empire of forms has continued to advance into new areas of …

Employee Beware! Employment Agreements And What The Technology Related Employee Should Know And Understand Before Signing That Agreement: A Practical Guide, Louis J. Papa

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keepings, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Options And Rights In Real Property…. Oh My!! The Scary Truth About Future Interests, Alisa M. Levin

Alisa M Levin

The law is a many splendored thing, but one thing is clear, that certain kinds of contracts and rights embodied within contracts can be confusing, especially for attorneys. True to form then, where even lawyers practicing in a particular area of law find something difficult to deal with, or they find that the law itself is unclear or that it has many ways to say the same thing, clarity is a welcome thing. In relation to real estate law in particular and specifically about the law of options and rights embodied within real estate contracts (whether purchase/sale documents or leases), …

Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel

Sidney Kwestel

No abstract provided.

Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Fingerprints Of Equitable Estoppel And Promissory Estoppel On The Statute Of Frauds In Contact Law, Stephen J. Leacock

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales, Keith A. Rowley, Carolyn L. Dessin, Larry T. Garvin, Robyn L. Meadows

Scholarly Works

2006 Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales

How To Create A Commercial Calamity, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article briefly catalogs the kinds of commercial calamities and then focuses on one of them, namely laws that are so imprecise and ambiguous that judges do not know how to apply them, and lawyers cannot explain them. The Article illustrates the problem with Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) section 2-209, dealing with contract modification and waiver. The paper does not focus on the ambiguities and obfuscations of section 2-209, but on the strategy of lawmaking that inevitably produces such a result. The drafters of section 2-209 ambitiously sought to reform the law, but then lost their nerve. In short, they …

Contracting Out Of Article 2: Minimizing The Obligation Of Performance & Liability For Breach, Sarah Howard Jenkins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales, Keith A. Rowley, Carolyn L. Dessin, Larry T. Garvin, Robyn L. Meadows

Scholarly Works

2004 Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Sales.

Is A Signed Offer Sufficient To Satisfy The Statute Of Frauds?, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In this article, the author attempts to clarify the law on the issue of whether a signed offer is a “sufficient writing" to satisfy the statute of frauds requirement. The article seeks to demonstrate that much of the confusion among contract law treatises regarding this issue stems from the writers sometimes failing to distinguish clearly between "common law" state statutes of frauds and UCC Section 2-201. Given the large body of case law in support of allowing signed offers to satisfy the common law statute of frauds requirements, the author argues that courts should be more reluctant to interpret UCC …

Parol Modification And The Statute Of Frauds: Fitting The Pieces Together Under The Uniform Commercial Code, Jeanette K. Brooks

Campbell Law Review

This comment explores, respectively, the history and purpose of the statute of frauds, the requirement of the Code's statute of frauds, the distinctions between sections 2-209(2) and 2-209(3), the faults in the majority application of section 2-209(3), the proposed application of section 2-209(3), and the benefits of the submitted application of section 2-209.

The Merchant's Exception To The Uniform Commercial Code's Statute Of Frauds, Charles D. Onofry

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Modification Mystery: Section 2-209 Of The Uniform Commercial Code, John E. Murray Jr.

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Promissory Estoppel And Oral Employment Contracts

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reformation And The Parol Evidence Rule, George E. Palmer

Michigan Law Review

The parol evidence rule of itself is never an obstacle to reformation, provided there is satisfactory evidence of a mistake in integration. If the parties intend to express the terms of a transaction in a writing, which is then to be looked to as the sole repository of those terms, the longstanding tradition of the law courts, described as the parol evidence rule, has been that the writing is controlling. If through mistake the writing failed to express correctly what the parties meant to express, the law courts still regarded the written word as decisive, but it has been recognized …

Reformation And The Statute Of Frauds, George E. Palmer

Michigan Law Review

There is unnecessary confusion and difference of opinion over the effect of the statute of frauds as a bar to reformation that would otherwise be available in connection with bargain transactions. Both the confusion and the conflict could be eliminated if it were clearly perceived that a decree of reformation is not the enforcement of an oral contract. Instead, it is a correction of the writing in question, or more basically a recognition that the legally significant agreement is the one the parties intended to express or describe in the writing. It is a separate question whether the writing as …

Commercial Law--A Farmer Is Not A "Merchant" Under The Uniform Commercial Code--Cook Grains, Inc. V. Fallis, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff grain company allegedly entered into an oral contract to purchase 5,000 bushels of soybeans from the defendant farmer. The grain company signed a written integration of the alleged oral agreement and mailed it to the farmer, with a request for his signature. The farmer neither signed the document nor attempted to communicate with the grain company and later refused to deliver the soybeans pursuant to the terms of the plaintiff's memorandum. In an action for breach of contract, the grain company contended that the farmer was precluded from relying on the statute of frauds, as incorporated in the Uniform …

Contracts -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Paul I. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

I. Promissory Estoppel--Application by Federal Court

II. Third Party Beneficiary--Enforcement of Labor and Material Bond

III. Statute of Frauds--Statute as Defense to Third Party

IV. Parol Evidence Rule--Application to Extrensic Subsequent Agreement

V. Illegal Bargains--Agreement Not to Compete

VI. Death of Party to Personal Service Contract as Terminating the Contract

Ehrenzweig And The Statute Of Frauds: An Inquiry Into The Rule Of Validation, Brainerd Currie

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contracts -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

During the period covered by this survey, the Tennessee courts have had occasion to decide some rather basic questions in the law of contracts. These cases are the subject of comment. Other cases involving only questions of burden of proof regarding contracts questions have not be commented on.

The Leading Purpose Doctrine As Applied To The Statute Of Frauds, William O. Morris

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mental Illness And The Law Of Contracts, Robert M. Brucken S.Ed., David L. Genger S.Ed., Denis T. Rice S.Ed., Mark Shaevsky S.Ed., William R. Slye S.Ed., Robert P. Volpe S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The traditional and most important problem relative to mental illness and the contract is the situation created when mental illness exists at the time of agreement (the problem of contractual capacity). One principal result of mental illness at this time may be the avoidance of the contract by the mentally ill person. Since case law in this area is extensive, the major portion of the study is concerned with this problem (parts II, III and IV) and the effects of such incapacity throughout the remaining course of the contract. Mental illness occurring after agreement and at the time of performance …

Contracts - Statute Of Frauds - Effect On Oral Exclusive Distributorship Agreement For Indefinite Duration, Robert Segar

Michigan Law Review

In 1935 plaintiff brewery made an oral agreement of no definite duration by which defendant and his father, as partners, were given the exclusive right to distribute its beer. Defendant, changing from one partnership to another, complied with various wishes of the plaintiff such as furnishing warehousing, purchasing uniform amounts of beer throughout the year although seasonal demands varied, dissolving the second partnership in 1950, discontinuing distribution of a rival beer in 1954, and hiring a sales promotion man in June 1954; the latter three actions taken on plaintiff's assurance that he would continue defendant's distributorship. In July 1954 plaintiff, …

Contracts - Statute Of Frauds - Signature Applicable To Only Part Of A Memorandum, George R. Haydon Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff buyer sought specific performance of an alleged contract for the sale of real estate. The instrument, denominated "deposit receipt," acknowledged receipt of the deposit, and then set forth the terms of the trade. This was signed "By Raymond Asmar," the alleged agent of the seller, in the place where the broker normally signs. Following this were two provisions. One, signed by plaintiff, stated that he agreed to purchase the property and that he confirmed the contract. A similar provision immediately following was not signed by defendant seller. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim on which …

Oral Contracts To Devise And Bequeath In West Virginia, H. G. U.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conflict Of Laws--Effect Of Forum's Statute Of Frauds On Foreign Oral Contract To Bequeath Property, David D. Dowd, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought an action in New York for specific performance of an oral agreement allegedly made by testator in Florida not to change his will without plaintiff's consent. Defendant's motions for dismissal of the complaint and summary judgment were dismissed. The appellate division on reargument entered orders reversing the lower court. On plaintiff's appeal to the court of appeals, held, affirmed. The New York Personal Property Law, which states that oral contracts to bequeath property are void, is controlling, regardless of whether this section of the statute of frauds is procedural or substantive. If the section is procedural, the …

Statute Of Frauds-Right Of Vendor To Collect On Check Given As Down Payment On Oral Sale Contract Repudiated By Vendee [Sturgis V. Meadors, Ark. 1954].

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contracts - Discharge - Accord And Satisfaction With A Third Person, W. Wallace Kent

Michigan Law Review

Action by P against D on an alleged oral promise to pay a debt owed to P by D's mother. P had agreed to discharge the mother from liability. There was no direct evidence that the mother was a party to the transaction. Apparently the defense was that D's promise was within the statute of frauds if the agreement to discharge was executory, or, if it was executed, that there was no consideration for D's promise because the discharge of D's mother was not legally binding since it was an accord and satisfaction with a third …