Law Commons^™

Rules Of Regularity: An Empirical Quest For Commercial Certainty In Arbitration, Cornelis J.W. Baaij

William & Mary Business Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court justifies the broad enforceability of arbitration agreements with the notion that arbitration expands parties' autonomy to contract for an efficient alternative to court proceedings. Unfortunately, the current practice of both domestic and cross-border commercial arbitration does not fully live up to these expectations. It is crucial to both autonomy and efficiency theories of contract law that adjudicatory decision-making is predictable so parties can tailor their contracts accordingly. However, commercial arbitration's prevailing culture of confidentiality and lack of stare decisis diminishes commercial certainty. To bring the reality of commercial arbitration closer to the Supreme Court's reasoning, this …

Independent Craft Breweries Struggle Under Distribution Laws That Create A Power Imbalance In Favor Of Wholesalers, Daniel Croxall

William & Mary Business Law Review

Independent craft breweries are facing historic challenges under the COVID-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, many states prohibit a brewery from terminating a distribution contract with a wholesaler absent statutorily defined “good cause,” which typically means fraud, bankruptcy, or other illegal conduct. In this context, lagging sales or poor distribution performance are not grounds for a brewery to terminate a distribution contract. This means that it is nearly impossible, legally or financially, for an independent craft brewery to terminate a distribution contract with an unsatisfactory wholesaler. In essence, states have statutorily tipped the balance of power in favor of distributors …

How Well Do We Treat Each Other In Contract?, Aditi Bagchi

William & Mary Business Law Review

One of the important contributions of Nathan Oman’s new book is to draw focus onto the quality of the relationships enabled by contract. He claims that contract, by supporting markets, cultivates certain virtues; helps facilitate cooperation among people with diverse commitments; and produces the wealth that may fuel interpersonal and social justice. These claims are all plausible, though subject to individual challenge. However, there is an alternative story to tell about the kinds of relationships that arise from markets--i.e., a story about domination. The experience of domination is driven in part by the necessity, inequality, and competition enjoined by markets, …

Contract Law And The Common Good, Brian H. Bix

William & Mary Business Law Review

In The Dignity of Commerce, Nathan Oman offers a theory of contract law that is largely descriptive, but also strongly normative. His theory presents contract law’s purpose as supporting robust markets. This Article compares and contrasts Oman’s argument about the proper understanding of contract law with one presented over eighty years earlier by Morris Cohen. Oman’s focus is on the connection between Contract Law and markets; Cohen’s connection had been between Contract Law and the public interest. Oman’s work brings back Cohen’s basic insight, and gives it a more concrete form, as a formidable normative theory with detailed prescriptions.

Contract, Promise, And The Right Of Redress, Andrew S. Gold

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Essay reviews Nathan Oman’s recent book, The Dignity of Commerce. The book is compelling, and it makes an important and original contribution to contract theory—a contribution that insightfully shows how markets matter. Yet, in the course of developing a market-centered justification for contract law, The Dignity of Commerce also downplays the significance of consent and promissory morality. In both cases, the book’s argument is problematic, but this Essay will address questions of promissory morality. Oman contends that promise-based accounts struggle with contract law’s bilateralism and with its private standing doctrine. Yet, promissory morality is a very good fit …

A Pragmatist’S View Of Promissory Law With A Focus On Consent And Reliance, Robert A. Hillman

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Article discusses Professor Nate Oman’s excellent new book, The Dignity of Commerce, which makes an impressive case for how markets can produce “desirable” outcomes for society. In addition to a comprehensive account of what he calls “virtues” of markets, such as their tendency to produce cooperation, trust, and wealth, the book is full of useful and persuasive supporting information and discussions.

Oman is not only a fan of markets, but he asserts that markets are the “center” of contract theory, and provide its normative foundation. Elaborating, Oman concludes that “contract law exists primarily to support markets” and that …

Does Contract Law Need Morality?, Kimberly D. Krawiec, Wenhao Liu

William & Mary Business Law Review

In The Dignity of Commerce, Nathan Oman sets out an ambitious market theory of contract, which he argues is a superior normative foundation for contract law than either the moralist or economic justifications that currently dominate contract theory. In doing so, he sets out a robust defense of commerce and the marketplace as contributing to human flourishing that is a refreshing and welcome contribution in an era of market alarmism. But the market theory ultimately falls short as either a normative or prescriptive theory of contract. The extent to which law, public policy, and theory should account for values …

Markets And Morals: The Limits Of Doux Commerce, Mark L. Movsesian

William & Mary Business Law Review

In this Essay on Professor Oman’s beautifully written and meticulously researched book, The Dignity of Commerce, I do three things. First, I describe what I take to be the central message of the book, namely, that markets promote liberal values of tolerance, pluralism, and cooperation among rival, even hostile groups. Second, I show how Oman’s argument draws from a line of political and economic thought that dates to the Enlightenment, the so-called doux commerce thesis of thinkers like Montesquieu and Adam Smith. Finally, I discuss what I consider the most penetrating criticism of that thesis, Edmund Burke’s critique from …

The Restatement (Second) Of Contracts § 211: Unfulfilled Expectations And The Future Of Modern Standardized Consumer Contracts, Eric A. Zacks

William & Mary Business Law Review

By any measure, section 211 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts is a disappointment. The section purported to ensure the benefits of standardized contracts by presuming assent to all terms when a contract is signed or adopted. At the same time, section 211 made it unreasonable for drafting parties to rely on terms if the drafter knew or should have known that the other party would not have assented had the other been aware of such terms. Nevertheless, section 211 is rarely cited with respect to any standardized contract dispute, and even where cited, it rarely provides relief to the …

Kill The Monster: Promissory Estoppel As An Independent Cause Of Action, Susan Lorde Martin

William & Mary Business Law Review

Contract rules may be dissolving into tort-type notions of unfairness and injustice. Traditionally, promissory estoppel was viewed as a substitute for consideration in situations where promisors made promises knowing that promisees would act in reliance on them, the promisees did act on the promises, and the promisors refused to do what they promised to do, to the promisees’ detriment. The purpose of promissory estoppel was clearly one of fairness and preventing injustice by enforcing a promise not supported by consideration in very limited circumstances. In recent cases, however, courts have been approving the use of promissory estoppel as an independent …

Protecting Brand Image Or Gaming The System? Consumer “Gag” Contracts In An Age Of Crowdsourced Ratings And Reviews, Lucille M. Ponte

William & Mary Business Law Review

Traditionally, businesses developed and controlled brand image through company-sponsored advertising and marketing campaigns. With the rise of social media, brand communications have become more interactive, especially on crowdsourced review sites. This increased interactivity helps companies to gain valuable insight into the consumer experience and to improve their brand image and customer engagement. Businesses soon learned that positive consumer ratings and reviews often translated into enhanced brand reputation and increased revenues. Some merchants and professionals seek to burnish their brand image by paying for positive reviews while others try to silence disgruntled customers through adhesive nondisparagement clauses. These gag clauses may …

Too Clever By Half: Reflections On Perception, Legitimacy, And Choice Of Law Under Revised Article 1 Of The Uniform Commercial Code, Mark Edwin Burge

William & Mary Business Law Review

The overwhelmingly successful 2001 rewrite of Article 1 of the Uniform Commercial Code was accompanied by an overwhelming failure: proposed section 1-301 on contractual choice of law. As originally sent to the states, section 1-301 would have allowed non-consumer parties to a contract to select a governing law that bore no relation to their transaction. Proponents justifiably contended that such autonomy was consistent with emerging international norms and with the nature of contracts creating voluntary private obligations. Despite such arguments, the original version of section 1-301 was resoundingly rejected, gaining zero adoptions by the states before its withdrawal in 2008. …

Courts Gone “Irrationally Biased” In Favor Of The Federal Arbitration Act?—Enforcing Arbitration Provisions In Standardized Applications And Marginalizing Consumer-Protection, Antidiscrimination, And States’ Contract Laws: A 1925–2014 Legal And Empirical Analysis, Willy E. Rice

William & Mary Business Law Review

Spanning nearly forty years, the Supreme Court has issued multiple decisions and stated categorically that “judicial hostility to arbitration” was the sole impetus behind Congress’s decision to enact the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925. In fact, before the FAA, systemic trade-specific problems and practices generated heated disputes and widespread litigation among merchants and trade organizations. Thus, to arrest those constituents’ concerns, Congress enacted the FAA. Briefly, under the FAA section 2, arbitration is mandatory if a contractual arbitration provision is valid and a controversy “arises out of the contract.” However, common-law rules of contract formation are equally clear: Standing alone, …

Fingerprints Of Equitable Estoppel And Promissory Estoppel On The Statute Of Frauds In Contact Law, Stephen J. Leacock

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Article evaluates a conundrum and identifies a genuine risk faced by state and federal courts in interpreting and applying the Statute of Frauds to contract law disputes. The Article provides a thorough analytical dissection of the Statute of Frauds as it has been interpreted and applied by the courts in light of the inescapable tension between the Statute’s formalities, mandated by the legislature, and the judiciary’s profound goal of attaining justice and fairness in deciding each contract law dispute in which the Statute is implicated. The Article discusses in depth how the Statute has been construed by state and …