Law Commons^™

Is A Burrito A Sandwich? Exploring Race, Class, And Culture In Contracts, Marjorie Florestal

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A superior court in Worcester, Massachusetts, recently determined that a burrito is not a sandwich. Surprisingly, the decision sparked a firestorm of media attention. Worcester, Massachusetts, is hardly the pinnacle of the culinary arts-so why all the interest in the musings of one lone judge on the nature of burritos and sandwiches? Closer inspection revealed the allure of this otherwise peculiar case: Potentially thousands of dollars turned on the interpretation of a single word in a single clause of a commercial contract. Judge Locke based his decision on "common sense" and a single definition of sandwich-"two thin pieces of bread, …

'Agreeing To Disagree': Filling Gaps In Deliberately Incomplete Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar

Articles

Incomplete contracts have always been viewed as raising the following challenge for contract law: does the incompleteness-or, "indefiniteness," as it is usually called-rise to such a level that renders the agreement legally unenforceable? When the indefiniteness concerns important terms, it is presumed that the parties have not reached an agreement to which they intend to be bound. This "fundamental policy" is the upshot of the view that "contracts should be made by the parties, not by the courts."' When, in contrast, the indefiniteness concerns less important terms, courts supplement the agreement with gap fillers and enforce the supplemented contract.

Default Rules In Sales And The Myth Of Contracting Out, James J. White

Articles

In this article, I trace the dispute in the courts and before the ALI and NCCUSL over the proper contract formation and interpretation default rules. In Part II, I consider the Gateway litigation. In Part III, I deal with UCITA and the revision to Article 2. In Part IV, I consider the merits of the competing default rules.

Good Faith And The Cooperative Antagonist (Symposium On Revised Article 1 And Proposed Revised Article 2 Of The Uniform Commercial Code), James J. White

Articles

One of Karl Llewellyn's most noted achievements in the Uniform Commercial Code was to impose the duty of good faith on every obligation under the Uniform Commercial Code.1 Some (I am one) have privately thought that imposition of this unmeasurable, undefinable duty was Llewellyn's cruelest trick, but no court, nor any academic writer, has ever been so bold or so gauche as to suggest that good faith should not attend the obligations of parties under the UCC. Notwithstanding this silent indorsement of the duty of good faith, the courts2 and commentators3 have had difficulty in determining what is and what …

Presidential Address: Contract Reading Revisited, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Book Chapters

A quarter century ago, in a presentation at the Academy’s annual meeting, I used the phrase “contract reader” to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. That two-word phrase may be the only thing I ever said before this body which has been remembered. Unfortunately, it is almost invariably misunderstood. Time and again members have reproached me: “What’s the big deal about contract reading, anyway? Isn’t it just the same as contract interpretation?” Or, more substantively scathing: “Do you really think, Ted, that all you have to do to interpret a labor agreement is to …

Autistic Contracts (Symposium), James J. White

Articles

In this paper I address the question whether the law should affirm the offeror's inference and should bind the offeree to the terms proposed by the offeror even in circumstances where the offeree may not intend to accept those terms and where an objective observer might not draw the inference of agreement from the offeree's act. Modem practice and current proposals concerning contract formation in Revised Article 2 and in the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (nee Article 2B) press these issues on us more forcefully than old practices and different law did. 1 But contractual autism is not new; …

The Tentative Case Against Flexibility In Commercial Law, Omri Ben-Shahar

Articles

Well-rooted in modern commercial law is the idea that the law and the obligations that it enforces should reflect the empirical reality of the relationship between the contracting parties. The Uniform Commercial Code ("Code") champions this tradition by viewing the performance practices formed among the parties throughout their interaction as a primary source for interpreting and supplementing their explicit contracts. The generous recognition of waiver and modifications, as well as the binding force the Code accords to course of performance, course of dealings, and customary trade usages, effectively permits unwritten commercial practices to vary and to erode explicit contractual provisions.

Hypothetical Bargains: The Normative Structure Of Contract Interpretation, David Charny

Michigan Law Review

The argument here amplifies the contract literature with respect to basic contract theory and its doctrinal applications. The argument extends and corrects the current understanding of contract theory in several respects. First, it clarifies the role of liberal and communitarian argument in constructing interpretive conventions for contract. As currently understood among lawyers, the predominant noninstrumental theories of contract are in large measure indeterminate as to the question of default rules. Nonetheless, as I shall explain, these theories do have limited implications for the ground rules that govern interpretive conventions. The argument here, then, clarifies the role of noninstrumental theory in …

A Reasonable Approach To The Doctrine Of Reasonable Expectations As Applied To Insurance Contracts, Karen K. Shinevar

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this article examines standard insurance contract analysis and the existing confusion within that analysis. Part II examines the doctrine of reasonable expectations. In Part Ill, Professor Keeton's expansion of the reasonable expectations doctrine is explained and analyzed. This article concludes in Part IV that Keeton's expanded doctrine has the effect of confusing most courts, which continue to discuss reasonable expectations in relation to conventional rules of contract construction. The article proposes that the reasonable expectations doctrine be limited to contractual language and surrounding circumstances in order to establish clearer guidelines for insurers and consumers.

Contract Interpretation And The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku No Kaishaku), Whitmore Gray

Articles

A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970. The third installment introduces the basic principles of contract interpretation.

Contract Interpretation Under The Uniform Commercial Code (Ucc Ni Okeru Keiyaku No Kaishaku), Whitmore Gray

Articles

A series of seminar lectures given by Whitmore Gray in Tokyo, Japan during October 1968. Six articles were subsequently published in “Kaigai Shojihomu” (The International Business Law Bulletin) between July 1969 and May 1970.

The fourth installment discusses further considerations and principles that impact contract interpretation.

Reflections On The Nature Of Labor Arbitration, R. W. Fleming

Michigan Law Review

The use of arbitration as a means of settling labor-management disputes has increased steadily in the past twenty years. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court have underlined the importance of the process. The natural tendency is to compare labor arbitration with the court system as an adjudicatory process. There are, however, significant differences between the two, and this needs to be better understood.

An intelligent evaluation of the differences, and of the labor arbitration tribunal in general, can be made only after an exploration of its origin and history, and after some consideration of the kinds of cases which are …

Effect Of An Agreement By One Person To Supply Another's 'Requirements' Of A Given Commodity, Grover C. Grismore

Articles

The cases show that the kind of agreement indicated by the heading of this note has become an established part of business usage. In normal times such an agreement is likely to be carried out to the entire satisfaction of both parties, without question, but, in a period of changing business conditions and abnormal price flctuations such as we have witnessed during the last few years, nice questions of interpretation are likely to arise, as is well illustrated by the recent case of Oscar Schlegel Mfg. Co. v. Peter Coopers Glue Factory, (1920) 179 N. Y. S. 271.