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The Common Sense Of Contract Formation, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, David A. Hoffman
The Common Sense Of Contract Formation, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, David A. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
What parties know and think they know about contract law affects their obligations under the law and their intuitive obligations toward one another. Drawing on a series of new experimental questionnaire studies, this Article makes two contributions.First, it lays out what information and beliefs ordinary individuals have about how to form contracts with one another. We find that the colloquial understanding of contract law is almost entirely focused on formalization rather than actual assent, though the modern doctrine of contract formation takes the opposite stance. The second Part of the Article tries to get at whether this misunderstanding matters. Is …
Efficient Contextualism, Peter M. Gerhart, Juliet P. Kostritsky
Efficient Contextualism, Peter M. Gerhart, Juliet P. Kostritsky
Faculty Publications
This Article recommends an economic methodology of contract interpretation that enables the court to maximize the benefits of exchange for the parties and thereby enhance the institution of contracting. We recommend a methodology that asks the parties to identify the determinants of a surplus maximizing interpretation so that the court can determine whether the determinants raise issues that need to be tried. We thus avoid the false choice between textualist and contextualist methodologies, while allowing the parties and the court to avoid costly litigation. For textualist courts, our methodology helps the judge determine when the terms the parties used are …