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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The Churchill Falls Contract, James P. Feehan, Melvin Baker Apr 2007

The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The Churchill Falls Contract, James P. Feehan, Melvin Baker

Dalhousie Law Journal

The 1969 Churchill Falls contract between Hydro-Quebec and the Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation has been the subject of political controversy. It has also been challenged in the courts, with appeals reaching to the Supreme Court of Canada. Yet, despite the scrutiny of those court cases, the political rhetoric, and the literature that has been spawned by this matter, an extraordinary element of that contract remains remarkably obscure. It is the contract's renewal clause. At the expiry of the contract's forty-four-year term in 2016, that clause requires an automatic renewal for twenty-five additional years at a fixed nominal price that is …


Conflict Of Interest, Duress And Unconscionability In Quebec Civil Law: Comment On "The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The'churchill Falls Contract", Sarah P. Bradley Apr 2007

Conflict Of Interest, Duress And Unconscionability In Quebec Civil Law: Comment On "The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The'churchill Falls Contract", Sarah P. Bradley

Dalhousie Law Journal

As Professor James Feehan and archivist-historian Melvin Baker describe the circumstances in which the fateful renewal provision of the 1969 Churchill Falls hydro contract was negotiated, they suggest that the legal doctrines of conflict of interest or economic duress might offer a basis upon which the contract, or perhaps the renewal provision, could be impugned. In addition to interesting historical insights, their analysis offers the intriguing possibility that the government of Newfoundland may yet succeed in its long-standing battle to rid itself of its obligations under the grossly disadvantageous Churchill Falls contract.


Promissory Estoppel: The Life History Of An Ideal Legal Transplant, Joel M. Ngugi Jan 2007

Promissory Estoppel: The Life History Of An Ideal Legal Transplant, Joel M. Ngugi

University of Richmond Law Review

This article hopes to accomplish three things. First, it will revisit the historical origins of the doctrine of promissory estoppel in the American law of contracts and the role that Samuel Williston, the Chief Reporter of the Restatement (First) of Contracts ("First Restatement") played in the evolution of the doctrine. The dominant theory is that Williston conceptualized the new promissory estoppel doctrine in a way that retarded and blunted the doctrine shortly after its birth. This theory is adhered to by both critics and proponents of the expansion of promissory estoppel as a ground of promissory obligation. According to both …