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The Constitution, The Legislature, And Unfair Surprise: Toward A Reliance-Based Approach To The Contract Clause, Robert A. Graham

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the Court should return to a reliance-based approach to Contract Clause challenges, fashioned loosely along the same lines as the HRID. Although it does not advocate that the Court revivify the rules created by the early decisions, the Note proposes that the Court look to the private parties' expectations and, more specifically, to the reasonableness of those expectations in deciding the clause's applicability to a particular case. Part I provides a brief history of the Contract Clause and its development. This Part follows the clause from the Constitutional Convention through the 1980s to illustrate the Court's …