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The "Battle Of The Forms": Fairness, Efficiency, And The Best-Shot Rule, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

After the parties agree to a sale, the buyer sends a purchase order with one set of boilerplate terms on the reverse side; the seller responds with an acknowledgment and invoice with another set of boilerplate terms. Do they have a contract? If so, on what terms? This so-called "battle of the forms" has given rise to a great outpouring of scholarship and a legislative solution widely perceived as inartfully drafted and generally unsatisfactory. In particular, the Code solution has been criticized because it attempted to solve both the formation and interpretation problems with one rule. The Uniform Commercial Code …