Law Commons^™

Possibility Of Plain Meaning: Wittgenstein And The Contract Precedents, Val D. Ricks

Cleveland State Law Review

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. G.W. Thomas Drayage & Rigging Co and In re Soper's Estate claim that plain meaning in contract law is impossible. This claim is left irrefuted in the casebooks and contract law literature, Part I notes, and in most teaching of contract law. The consequence is that students are taught that plain meaning is impossible. A startling implication of this conclusion, as Part I explains, is that the majority of U.S. courts, which hold to the plain meaning rule, are relying on a fiction. But the claim that plain meaning is impossible is false, as …