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Articles 1 - 30 of 46
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Cost Of Guilty Breach: Willful Breach In M&A Contracts, Theresa Arnold, Amanda Dixon, Madison Whalen Sherrill, Hadar Tanne, Mitu Gulati
The Cost Of Guilty Breach: Willful Breach In M&A Contracts, Theresa Arnold, Amanda Dixon, Madison Whalen Sherrill, Hadar Tanne, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
The traditional framework of United States private law that every first-year student learns is that contracts and torts are different realms—contracts is the realm of strict liability and torts of fault. Contracts, we learn from the writings of Justice Holmes and Judge Posner, are best viewed as options; they give parties the option to perform or pay damages. The question we ask is whether, in the real world, that is indeed how contracting parties view things. Using a dataset made up of one thousand mergers and acquisitions (M&A) contracts and thirty in-depth interviews with M&A lawyers, we find that there …
Designing And Enforcing Preliminary Agreements, Albert H. Choi, George Triantis
Designing And Enforcing Preliminary Agreements, Albert H. Choi, George Triantis
Articles
Preliminary agreements—variously labeled as memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, term sheets, commitment letters, or agreements in principle—are common in complex business transactions. They document an incomplete set of terms that the parties have agreed upon, while anticipating further negotiation of the remaining provisions. They often create legal obligations, particularly a duty to negotiate in good faith. This duty has been the subject of a substantial number of judicial opinions over the past few decades and yet continues to be regarded as a confusing and unpredictable issue in contract law. Legal scholarship is hamstrung in its analysis of the case …
The Myth Of Optimal Expectation Damages, Theresa Arnold, Amanda Dixon, Madison Sherrill, Mitu Gulati
The Myth Of Optimal Expectation Damages, Theresa Arnold, Amanda Dixon, Madison Sherrill, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
A much-debated question in contract law scholarship is what the optimal measure of damages for breach should be. The casebook answer-drawing from the theory of efficient breach-is expectation damages. This standard answer, which was a major contribution of the law and economics field, has come under attack by theoreticians within that field itself. To shed an empirical perspective on the question, we look at data on the types of damages provisions parties contract/or themselves in international debt contracts. Specifically, we examine issuer call provisions, which are economically equivalent to damages for prepayment, yet not viewed as legally problematic in the …
Apple V. Pepper: Rationalizing Antitrust’S Indirect Purchaser Rule, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Apple V. Pepper: Rationalizing Antitrust’S Indirect Purchaser Rule, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
All Faculty Scholarship
In Apple v. Pepper the Supreme Court held that consumers who allegedly paid too much for apps sold on Apple’s iStore could sue Apple for antitrust damages because they were “direct purchasers.” The decision reflects some bizarre complexities that have resulted from the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Illinois Brick, which held that only direct purchasers could sue for overcharge injuries under the federal antitrust laws. The indirect purchaser rule was problematic from the beginning. First, it was plainly inconsistent with the antitrust damages statute, which gives an action to “any person who shall be injured in his business …
Does Failure To Mitigate Damages Bar Recovery Of The Costs Of Mitigation?, Gregory S. Crespi
Does Failure To Mitigate Damages Bar Recovery Of The Costs Of Mitigation?, Gregory S. Crespi
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
It is well established that a person who makes reasonable efforts to mitigate her damages after a breach of contract will be able to recover the costs of those mitigation efforts as incidental damages and that a person who fails to make such efforts will be denied recovery of the damages that could have been avoided. But will a person who fails to take reasonable efforts to mitigate damages still be able to recover the probable cost of those mitigation efforts as an offset against the reduction in her damages for failure to mitigate, even though she did not incur …
Contracts, Causation, And Clarity, Daniel P. O'Gorman
Contracts, Causation, And Clarity, Daniel P. O'Gorman
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Lost Volume Seller, R.I.P., Victor P. Goldberg
The Lost Volume Seller, R.I.P., Victor P. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
If the buyer breaches a sales contract, and if the seller can be characterized as a lost volume seller, courts and commentators have argued that the seller should be made whole by compensation for its lost profits. This paper argues that framing the problem in this way leads to an absurd result. The buyer has a termination option and the remedy should be the implicit option price. The lost profit remedy sets a price on that option, a price that bears no relation to reality. Examination of the case law suggests three conclusions: (a) the remedy often sets an excessive …
An App For Third Party Beneficiaries, David G. Epstein
An App For Third Party Beneficiaries, David G. Epstein
Law Faculty Publications
Every year, more than 100 reported court opinions consider the question of whether an outsider can sue for damages under a contract made by others-in part because the law is so ambiguous. While contract enforcement by a third party is controlled largely by the facts of the particular case, it also materially depends upon the relevant legal standards. At present, not just the standards, but also the reasons for these standards, are unclear. Eighty years ago, Lon Fuller, a professor teaching contracts at a then-Southern law school, and William Perdue, a student at that school, significantly clarified and improved decision …
An App For Third Party Beneficiaries, Alexandra W. Cook, J. Kyle Lowder, Michelle Sonntag
An App For Third Party Beneficiaries, Alexandra W. Cook, J. Kyle Lowder, Michelle Sonntag
Law Student Publications
Every year, more than 100 reported court opinions consider the question of whether an outsider can sue for damages under a contract made by others-in part because the law is so ambiguous. While contract enforcement by a third party is controlled largely by the facts of the particular case, it also materially depends upon the relevant legal standards. At present, not just the standards, but also the reasons for these standards, are unclear. Eighty years ago, Lon Fuller, a professor teaching contracts at a then-Southern law school, and William Perdue, a student at that school, significantly clarified and improved decision …
When Lightning Strikes: Hadley V. Baxendale's Probability Standard Applied To Long-Shot Contracts, Daniel P. O'Gorman
When Lightning Strikes: Hadley V. Baxendale's Probability Standard Applied To Long-Shot Contracts, Daniel P. O'Gorman
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
After The Golden Victory: Still Lost At Sea, Victor P. Goldberg
After The Golden Victory: Still Lost At Sea, Victor P. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
In The Golden Victory the House of Lords held that when determining damages for a repudiatory breach, in a conflict between the compensatory principle and finality, the former trumped. The decision was recently ratified by the Supreme Court in Bunge SA v. Nidera BV. The claim in this paper is that this was a mistake; properly conceived, there is no conflict. The contract should be viewed as an asset and compensation would entail determining the decline in value of that asset at the time of the breach. The value of the contract at that moment would reflect the possible effects …
Brief Of Restitution And Remedies Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent: Spokeo V. Robins, Doug Rendleman, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen
Brief Of Restitution And Remedies Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent: Spokeo V. Robins, Doug Rendleman, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen
Scholarly Articles
Both consumer protection and restitution may be casualties in a collision with the constitutional law of standing.
Spokeo collects information from the internet and publishes it; however, Spokeo neither verifies the facts nor confirms which same-named person it refers to. Robins alleges that Spokeo violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by disseminating false information about him. He seeks class certification and up to $1,000 in statutory minimum damages instead of compensatory damages. Spokeo argues that Robins lacks standing because he suffered no “injury in fact,” no “concrete harm.”
Statutory minimum recoveries for defendants’ violations of plaintiffs’ individual rights without proof …
Damages Versus Specific Performance: Lessons From Commercial Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller
Damages Versus Specific Performance: Lessons From Commercial Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Specific performance is a central contractual remedy but, in Anglo-American law, generally is subordinate to damages. Despite rich theoretical discussions of specific performance, little is known about parties' treatment of the remedy in their contracts. We study 2,347 contracts of public corporations to quantify the presence or absence of specific performance clauses in several types of contracts. Although a majority of contracts do not refer to specific performance, substantial variation exists in the rates of including specific performance clauses. High rates of specific performance use in the area of corporate combinations through merger (53.4 percent) or assets sales (45.1 percent), …
Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca
Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca
Law Faculty Scholarship
For several years, courts have been improperly calculating damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically-modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent’s status as a de facto standard essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, …
Remedies: A Guide For The Perplexed, Doug Rendleman
Remedies: A Guide For The Perplexed, Doug Rendleman
Scholarly Articles
Remedies is one of a law student’s most practical courses. Remedies students and their professors learn to work with their eyes on the question at the end of litigation: what can the court do for the successful plaintiff? Remedies develops students’ professional identities and broadens their professional horizons by reorganizing their analysis of procedure, torts, contracts, and property around choosing and measuring relief - compensatory damages, punitive damages, an injunction, specific performance, disgorgement, and restitution. This article discusses the law-school course in Remedies - the content of the Remedies course, the Remedies classroom experience, and Remedies outside the classroom through …
The Expectation Measure And Its Discontents, Shawn J. Bayern, Melvin A, Eisenberg
The Expectation Measure And Its Discontents, Shawn J. Bayern, Melvin A, Eisenberg
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
Do Liquidated Damages Encourage Breach? A Psychological Experiment, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Do Liquidated Damages Encourage Breach? A Psychological Experiment, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article offers experimental evidence that parties are more willing to exploit efficient-breach opportunities when the contract in question includes a liquidated-damages clause. Economists claim that the theory of efficient breach allows us to predict when parties will choose to breach a contract if the legal remedy for breach is expectation damages. However, the economic assumption of rational wealth-maximizing actors fails to capture important, shared, nonmonetary values and incentives that shape behavior in predictable ways. When interpersonal obligations are informal or underspecified, people act in accordance with shared community norms, like the moral norm of keeping promises. However, when sanctions …
The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contact Damages, Nathan B. Oman
The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contact Damages, Nathan B. Oman
Faculty Publications
The law of contracts is complex but remarkably stable. What we lack is a widely accepted interpretation of that law as embodying a coherent set of normative choices. Some scholars have suggested that either economic efficiency or personal autonomy provide unifying principles of contract law. These two approaches, however, seem incommensurable, which suggests that we must reject at least one of them in order to have a coherent theory. This Article dissents from this view and has a simple thesis: Economic accounts of the current doctrine governing contract damages have failed, but efficiency arguments remain key to any adequate theory …
Zapata Retold: Attorneys' Fees Are (Still) Not Governed By The Cisg, Harry Flechtner, Joseph Lookofsky
Zapata Retold: Attorneys' Fees Are (Still) Not Governed By The Cisg, Harry Flechtner, Joseph Lookofsky
Articles
In this work, the authors reiterate and expand on their conclusion that the question of reimbursement for attorney fees incurred in the course of litigating a claim under the United Nations Sales Convention (CISG) is beyond the scope of the CISG, and is governed by domestic law. As discussed in the paper, this conclusion is in line with a recent CISG Advisory Council Opinion (Advisory Council Opinion No. 6) dealing with the calculation of damages under Article 74 of the CISG. We argue that relegating to domestic law the question of recovering attorney fees incurred during litigation over a CISG …
Contracting Out Of Article 2: Minimizing The Obligation Of Performance & Liability For Breach, Sarah Howard Jenkins
Contracting Out Of Article 2: Minimizing The Obligation Of Performance & Liability For Breach, Sarah Howard Jenkins
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Contracts Without Consent: Exploring A New Basis For Contractual Liability, Omri Ben-Shahar
Contracts Without Consent: Exploring A New Basis For Contractual Liability, Omri Ben-Shahar
Articles
This Essay explores an alternative to one of the pillars of contract law, that obligations arise only when there is "mutual assent "--when the parties reach consensus over the terms of the transaction. It explores a principle of "no-retraction," under which each party is obligated to terms it manifested and can retract only with some liability. In contrast to the all-or-nothing nature of the mutual assent regime, where preliminary forms of consent are either full-blown contracts or create no obligation, under the no-retraction regime, obligations emerge gradually, as the positions of the negotiating parties draw closer. Further, the no-retraction liability …
Nonmaterial Misrepresentation: Damages, Rescission, And The Possibility Of Efficient Fraud, Emily Sherwin
Nonmaterial Misrepresentation: Damages, Rescission, And The Possibility Of Efficient Fraud, Emily Sherwin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Buried in the details of legal doctrine governing misrepresentation is a remedial anomaly that raises some interesting questions about how law should deal with moral wrongs such as fraud. We tend to think of deliberate deception--fraud--as a grave moral wrong. At least, we think of deception as gravely wrong when the deceiver's objective is not to avert harm or spare feelings, but to obtain someone's money or goods. Deception denies the autonomy of the person deceived and undermines the foundation of trust in human interaction. The law, however, does not penalize every instance of fraud. Moreover, the standards governing when …
"Money Can't Buy Me Love": A Contrast Between Damages In Family Law And Contract, Margaret F. Brinig
"Money Can't Buy Me Love": A Contrast Between Damages In Family Law And Contract, Margaret F. Brinig
Journal Articles
As my contribution to this symposium in David's honor, I submit the law and economics section of the damages chapter of our joint enterprise, Understanding Contracts. Because of David's failing health, my own involvement with the publisher never reached contract stage. The chapter concludes with a problem that illustrates some of the intricacies of mixing family law and contract. David and I grappled for some time with the answer to the problem, coming at it from our different points of view. On one occasion, David, with a twinkle, told me there was only one place where I was "absolutely wrong." …
Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Scholarly Works
Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 2000 and 2001.
Reconsidering The Reliance Interest, Christopher W. Frost
Reconsidering The Reliance Interest, Christopher W. Frost
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
This essay discusses the place of Fuller and Perdue's The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages in the contracts classroom. After first describing my use of The Reliance Interest, I will set out what I consider to be the pedagogical benefits of beginning the course with remedies and the attractiveness of Fuller and Perdue's analytical model in conveying an understanding of the remedial structure. Next, I will discuss the views of critics Craswell, Kelly and Barnes. Finally, I will revisit the place of Fuller and Perdue's work in the contracts course in light of these criticisms.
Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Scholarly Works
Recent case developments in Insurance Law in the years 1999 and 2000.
The Secrecy Interest In Contract Law, Omri Ben-Shahar, Lisa Bernstein
The Secrecy Interest In Contract Law, Omri Ben-Shahar, Lisa Bernstein
Articles
A long and distinguished line of law-and-economics articles has established that in many circumstances fully compensatory expectation damages are a desirable remedy for breach of contract because they induce both efficient performance and efficient breach. The expectation measure, which seeks to put the breached-against party in the position she would have been in had the contract been performed, has, therefore, rightly been chosen as the dominant contract default rule. It does a far better job of regulating breach-or-perform incentives than its leading competitors-the restitution measure, the reliance measure, and specific performance. This Essay does not directly take issue with the …
Section 365 In The Consumer Context: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Michael G. Hillinger, Ingrid Michelsen Hillinger
Section 365 In The Consumer Context: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Michael G. Hillinger, Ingrid Michelsen Hillinger
Faculty Publications
The § 365 consumer debtor case law has a further complication. Much of it arises in the context of the last great bankruptcy frontier, Chapter 13. Until recently, Chapter 11 has occupied the minds and hearts of courts and attorneys. Not any more. And, as attorneys and courts take a closer, harder look at Chapter 13, it is no longer possible to describe it as a “streamlined creditors-can’t-vote Chapter 11”. Chapter 13 is unique, presenting its very own quandaries, not the least of which is how its provisions and § 365 interact. We live in interesting times.
Bloomer Girl Revisited Or How To Frame An Unmade Picture, Victor P. Goldberg
Bloomer Girl Revisited Or How To Frame An Unmade Picture, Victor P. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
Nearly all contracts casebooks feature the saga of Shirley MacLaine's suit against Twentieth Century Fox arising from the cancellation of the proposed film Bloomer Girl. None really get the story right. To be fair, none try. The case is a vehicle for exploring the obligation of the victim of the breach of an employment contract to take alternative employment. If MacLaine refused an offer of alternative employment that was not "different and inferior," her failure to mitigate would mean that the earnings she would have received would be offset against the damages; so, asked the court, was the alternative …
Form Contracts Under Revised Article 2 (Symposium: Consumer Protection And The Uniform Commercial Code), James J. White
Form Contracts Under Revised Article 2 (Symposium: Consumer Protection And The Uniform Commercial Code), James J. White
Articles
The current draft of section 2-206 in Revised Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") entitled "Consumer Contract: Standard Form"1 presents a unique and threatening challenge to the drafters of consumer form contracts. In earlier drafts, one part of the section applied to both to commercial contracts and consumer contracts. It required that "one manifest assent" to any form contract, commercial or consumer, in order for it to be binding.2 Bowing to commercial opposition in the most recent version, the drafters have omitted all reference to commercial contracts. As the section stands, it applies only to consumer contracts.