Law Commons^™

The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko

Faculty Publications

A consensus has begun to develop in the case law, the academic commentary, and the statutory reform movement that a testator’s provision in her will mandating arbitration of any challenge to the will should not be enforceable against a beneficiary who has not agreed to the arbitration provision, at least where the will contestant, by her contest, seeks to increase her inheritance outside the will. Grounding this consensus is the widespread understanding that a will is not a contract. This Article seeks to challenge both the understanding that the will is not a contract and the opposition to enforcement of …

From Imperial China To Cyberspace: Contracting Without The State, David D. Friedman

Faculty Publications

In 1895, as part of the treaty of Shimonoseki, China ceded the island of Taiwan to Japan. The Japanese government wished to maintain the existing legal system; in order to do so it had to discover what that legal system was.

One feature of that legal system was the combination of elaborate contractual practice with an almost total absence of contract law. Imperial China had no equivalent of our civil lawsuits. A merchant who had sold goods on credit and not been paid could, if he wished, report his debtor to the district magistrate for the crime of swindling him-but …