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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Perverse Consequences Of Disclosing Standard Terms, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
The Perverse Consequences Of Disclosing Standard Terms, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
All Faculty Scholarship
Although assent is the doctrinal and theoretical hallmark of contract, its relevance for form contracts has been drastically undermined by the overwhelming evidence that no one reads standard terms. Until now, most political and academic discussions of this phenomenon have acknowledged the truth of universally unread contracts, but have assumed that even unread terms are at best potentially helpful, and at worst harmless. This Article makes the empirical case that unread terms are not a neutral part of American commerce; instead, the mere fact of fine print inhibits reasonable challenges to unfair deals. The experimental study reported here tests the …
Modernizing Informed Consent: Expanding The Boundaries Of Materiality, Nadia N. Sawicki
Modernizing Informed Consent: Expanding The Boundaries Of Materiality, Nadia N. Sawicki
Faculty Publications & Other Works
Informed consent law’s emphasis on the disclosure of purely medical information – such as diagnosis, prognosis, and the risks and benefits of various treatment alternatives – does not accurately reflect modern understandings of how patients make medical decisions. Existing common law disclosure duties fail to capture a variety of non-medical factors relevant to patients, including information about the physician’s personal characteristics; the cost of treatment; the social implications of various health care interventions; and the legal consequences associated with diagnosis and treatment. Although there is a wealth of literature analyzing the merits of such disclosures in a few narrow contexts, …
Chain-Link Confidentiality, Woodrow Hartzog
Chain-Link Confidentiality, Woodrow Hartzog
Faculty Scholarship
Disclosing personal information online often feels like losing control over one’s data forever; but this loss is not inevitable. This essay proposes a “chain-link confidentiality” approach to protecting online privacy. One of the most difficult challenges to guarding privacy in the digital age is the protection of information once it is exposed to other people. A chain-link confidentiality regime would contractually link the disclosure of personal information to obligations to protect that information as the information moves downstream. The system would focus on the relationships not only between the discloser of information and the initial recipient, but also between the …
Defending Disclosure In Software Licensing, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Defending Disclosure In Software Licensing, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This Article surveys prominent kinds of disclosures in contract law-of facts, contract terms, and performance intentions. We show why the disclosure tool, although subject to substantial criticism, promotes important social values and goals, including efficiency, autonomy, corrective justice, fairness, and the legitimacy of the contract process. Further, proposals to replace disclosure with other alternatives are unrealistic because they are too expensive or complex. Our working example is the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Software Contracts.
Principles Of The Law Of Software Contracts: Some Highlights, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Principles Of The Law Of Software Contracts: Some Highlights, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The final draft of the Principles of the Law of Software Contracts ("Principles") was unanimously approved by the American Law Institute membership in May of 2009. The goal of the project is to “clarify and unify the law of software transactions.” However, the Principles will not become law in any jurisdiction unless and until a court adopts them, so only time will tell whether the project will accomplish this goal. Nevertheless, one thing is certain. The current law of software transactions, a mish-mash of common law, Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and federal intellectual property law, among other …
Rethinking Mistake And Nondisclosure In Contract Law, Jeffrey L. Harrison
Rethinking Mistake And Nondisclosure In Contract Law, Jeffrey L. Harrison
UF Law Faculty Publications
This Article reconsiders the analysis of the disclosure/nondisclosure issue. Part I of this Article elaborates on the basic model and some of the complexities of identifying the actual impact of nondisclosure. Part II details the social costs of the default nondisclosure rule. In Part III, a case is made that concepts like "mistake" and "defect," both "patent" and "latent," unnecessarily retard allocative efficiency by limiting what must be disclosed. In Part IV, alternatives to the default nondisclosure rule are examined in the context of several cases, some of which have been used to illustrate the virtues of the default rule.
Mistake And Disclosure In A Model Of Two-Sided Informational Inputs, Michael J. Borden
Mistake And Disclosure In A Model Of Two-Sided Informational Inputs, Michael J. Borden
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
This paper will examine some theoretical aspects of contractual non-disclosure and the related doctrine of unilateral mistake. These two legal rubrics are conceptually similar; each is concerned with the degree to which parties must communicate their understandings about the nature of the contract into which they are about to enter. If one party fails to reveal enough information, the other party may enter into the agreement under a misunderstanding and consequently may attempt to avoid contractual liability on the basis of mistake or on a theory of nondisclosure. The law of contracts clearly attaches a great deal of importance to …
Bootstrapping And Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Arbitral Infatuation And The Decline Of Consent, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Bootstrapping And Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Arbitral Infatuation And The Decline Of Consent, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Scholarly Works
The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution preserves for litigants a right to a jury trial in actions at law. The right to a jury trial does not attach for equitable actions, but in cases presenting claims for both legal and equitable relief a right to a jury trial exists for common questions of fact. Although many modern statutes and claims did not exist in 1791, the Amendment has been interpreted to require a jury trial of statutory claims seeking monetary damages, the classic form of legal relief, so long as there is a relatively apt analogy between the modern statutory …