Law Commons^™

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 …

A Tyrannosaurus-Rex Aptly Named Sue: Using A Disputed Dinosaur To Teach Contract Defenses, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In August 1990, commercial fossil hunters from the Black Hills Geologic Institute ("Black Hills") discovered the remains of an almost complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton located in the Badlands of South Dakota. Named "Sue" after her discoverer, the fossil immediately became the subject of controversy. Although many of the facts were disputed, the collectors gave the purported owner of the land, a Native American rancher named Maurice Williams, a check for $5,000, which he cashed, and the collectors excavated Sue. The fair market value of a T-Rex skeleton with that degree of completeness was over eight million dollars.

Once the …