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Articles 1 - 30 of 43
Full-Text Articles in Contracts
Convergence By Design: Who Contracts And The Plural Purposes Of Contract Law, Gregory Klass
Convergence By Design: Who Contracts And The Plural Purposes Of Contract Law, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
A theory is robustly pluralist if it maintains that law is justified by multiple independent nonordered principles. Some have argued that robustly pluralist theories are deficient because they can provide no practical guidance when those principles conflict. The objection is misplaced when applied to pluralist theories of contract law.
This article demonstrates the possibility of a robustly pluralist and practically relevant theory of contract law by modeling a multipurpose law of contract. Five simple models are constructed to illustrate several purposes a contract law might serve, depending on preferences of the populace (self-interested utility maximizers, a preference for sharing, a …
Novation And Advance Consent, Kwan Ho Lau
Novation And Advance Consent, Kwan Ho Lau
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
Professor Goode once observed that “Novation need not be left to ad hoc agreement; it is open to the parties to provide for it in advance and in particular to establish a contractual mechanism by which novation takes place automatically on the occurrence of a designated act or event”. This deceptively straightforward proposition is examined in the present article. It explores the legal footing for, and the risks in adopting a pristine version of, the proposition, and considers possible safeguards that may be incorporated within the process of scrutiny, if in any case there arises concern over the effectiveness of …
Contracting For Process, David Snyder
Contracting For Process, David Snyder
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This article introduces the concept of contracting for process and considers when it is likely to be the best contract design. Contracting for process is in widespread use, but it often goes unnoticed. Some characteristics of contracting for process suit it particularly well to situations of uncertainty, including the radical uncertainty that results from fundamental disruptions such as COVID-19. Parties can employ this design for both contracts made or renegotiated during a crisis and for contracts made in ordinary times. The concept articulated here, however, is not confined to contexts of uncertainty or complexity; it can be used to achieve …
Systemic Risk Of Contract, Tal Kastner
Systemic Risk Of Contract, Tal Kastner
Scholarly Works
Complexity and uncertainty define our world, now more than ever. Scholars and practitioners have celebrated modular contract design as an especially effective tool to manage these challenges. Modularity divides complex structures into relatively discrete, independent components with simple connections. The benefits of this fundamental drafting approach are intuitive. Lawyers divide contracts into sections and provisions to make them easier to understand and reduce uncertainty. Dealmakers constructing complex transactions use portable agreements as building blocks to reduce drafting costs and enable innovation. Little attention, however, has been paid to the risks introduced by modularity in contracts. This Article demonstrates how this …
Business Information And Nondisclosure Agreements: A Public Policy Framework, Rex N. Alley
Business Information And Nondisclosure Agreements: A Public Policy Framework, Rex N. Alley
Northwestern University Law Review
Trade secret law, as codified in the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, gives businesses in nearly every U.S. jurisdiction a uniform, clearly defined right to protect secret and valuable business information from misappropriation. But how can businesses protect information that, while potentially useful, falls short of the legal definition of a trade secret? Businesses often require their employees to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to protect this category of information, which this Note refers to as “confidential business information” or “CBI.” These CBI NDAs are often drafted so broadly that, read literally, they would encompass every piece of information an employee learns …
Creating Cryptolaw For The Uniform Commercial Code, Carla L. Reyes
Creating Cryptolaw For The Uniform Commercial Code, Carla L. Reyes
Washington and Lee Law Review
A contract generally only binds its parties. Security agreements, which create a security interest in specific personal property, stand out as a glaring exception to this rule. Under certain conditions, security interests not only bind the creditor and debtor, but also third-party creditors seeking to lend against the same collateral. To receive this extraordinary benefit, creditors must put the world on notice, usually by filing a financing statement with the state in which the debtor is located. Unfortunately, the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) Article 9 filing system fails to provide actual notice to interested parties and introduces risk of heavy …
The Social Cost Of Contract, David A. Hoffman, Cathy Hwang
The Social Cost Of Contract, David A. Hoffman, Cathy Hwang
All Faculty Scholarship
When private parties perform contracts, the public bears some of the costs. But what happens when society confronts unexpected contractual risks? During the COVID-19 pandemic, completing particular contracts—such as following through with weddings, conferences, and other large gatherings—will greatly increase the risk of rapidly spreading disease. A close reading of past cases illustrates that when social hazards sharply increase after formation, courts have sometimes rejected, reformed, and reinterpreted contracts so that parties who breach to reduce external harms are not left holding the bag.
This Essay builds on that observation in making two contributions. Theoretically, it characterizes contracts as bargains …
Law And Covid-19, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez, Yihan Goh, Mark Findlay
Law And Covid-19, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez, Yihan Goh, Mark Findlay
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This book is a collection of essays from scholars at Singapore Management University School of Law analysing the challenges and implications of COVID-19 from the perspective of different areas of law, including private law, corporate law, insolvency law, data protection, financial laws, public law, privacy law, commercial law, constitutional law, law and technology, and dispute resolution. It also analyses how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the judicial system, the study of law, and the future of the legal profession. Beyond considerations of the pandemic’s influence on law and legal service delivery the authors consider how law can help facilitate the …
Revisiting The Enforceability Of Online Contracts: The Need For Unambiguous Assent To Inconspicuous Terms, Tom Mozingo
Revisiting The Enforceability Of Online Contracts: The Need For Unambiguous Assent To Inconspicuous Terms, Tom Mozingo
Seattle University Law Review
In determining the enforceability of online contracts, namely those formed from the use of smartphone applications, courts typically look to whether the contract terms were reasonably conspicuous or communicated to the consumer. With the rise of “browse-wrap” contracts, where terms are not directly communicated to the consumer or where the consumer is not required to click the equivalent of an “I agree” button clearly manifesting assent to the terms, courts have inconsistently applied the reasonable communicativeness standard to the detriment of consumers and application developers alike. This Comment will explore the development of browse-wrap contracting jurisprudence and the need to …
Manifest Disregard In International Commercial Arbitration: Whether Manifest Disregard Holds, However Good, Bad, Or Ugly, Chad R. Yates
Manifest Disregard In International Commercial Arbitration: Whether Manifest Disregard Holds, However Good, Bad, Or Ugly, Chad R. Yates
University of Massachusetts Law Review
Manifest disregard is a common law reason for not enforcing an arbitration award. This principle applies when the arbitrator knew and understood the law, but the arbitrator disregarded the applicable law. Presently, the United States Supreme Court has not made a definite decision on whether manifest disregard is still a valid reason for vacating the award (known as “vacatur”), and the Court is highly deferential to arbitrator decisions. Consequently, the lower courts are split on the issue. For international commercial arbitration awards, manifest disregard can only apply to a foreign award that is decided under United States law or in …
Dismantling Democracy: Common Sense And The Contract Jurisprudence Of Frank Easterbrook, Deborah Post
Dismantling Democracy: Common Sense And The Contract Jurisprudence Of Frank Easterbrook, Deborah Post
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Cognition And Common Sense In Contract Law, Beverly Horsburgh, Andrew Cappel
Cognition And Common Sense In Contract Law, Beverly Horsburgh, Andrew Cappel
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Common Sense And Contract Law: Fear Of A Normative Planet?, Thomas Joo
Common Sense And Contract Law: Fear Of A Normative Planet?, Thomas Joo
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh
Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh
Shubha Ghosh
The Federal Circuit was established in 1982 as an appellate court with limited jurisdiction over patent claims. However, the Federal Circuit has used this limited jurisdiction to expand its reach into contract law, developing a federal common law of contract. Given the growing importance of patent litigation in the past three decades, this creation of an independent body of contract law creates uncertainty in transactions involving patents. This troublesome development received attention in Stanford v Roche, a 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Circuit's invalidation of a patent assignment to Stanford University. This Article documents the development of …
Liability For Work Done Where Contract Is Denied: Contractual And Restitutionary Approaches, Man Yip, Yihan Goh
Liability For Work Done Where Contract Is Denied: Contractual And Restitutionary Approaches, Man Yip, Yihan Goh
Man YIP
No abstract provided.
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Journal Articles
In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Christopher C. French
In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …
Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel
Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel
Sidney Kwestel
No abstract provided.
The Talent Agencies Act: Reconciling The Controversies Surrounding Lawyers, Managers, And Agents Participating In California's Entertainment Industry, Gary E. Devlin
Pepperdine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Liability For Work Done Where Contract Is Denied: Contractual And Restitutionary Approaches, Man Yip, Yihan Goh
Liability For Work Done Where Contract Is Denied: Contractual And Restitutionary Approaches, Man Yip, Yihan Goh
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This paper explores the divide between the law of contract and the law of restitution in dealing with the different situations that arise from one party commencing work prior to the conclusion of a formal contract. It argues that contract and unjust enrichment each have a proper role to play in dealing with such cases. First, it argues against a purely contractarian view that such cases should be exclusively resolved by the law of contract, through an implied collateral contract. Such a technique, applied vigorously, would result in nullifying the concept of “essential terms” and an artificial construction of parties …
Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel
Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
It's Time For A Good Hard Look In The Mirror: The Corporate Law Example, John A. Barrett, Jr.
It's Time For A Good Hard Look In The Mirror: The Corporate Law Example, John A. Barrett, Jr.
Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law
This Article asserts that the move from the industrial age to the
information age represents a fundamental change to our society on
such a widespread basis that the legal order must reexamine the
premises about how our society functions, assessing whether
foundational elements of U.S. Common Law remain valid. This
Article first confronts briefly the continuing acceptance of certain
foundational premises in contract and intellectual property law,
illustrating that such premises are no longer supported by the
realities of modern society. With fundamental change challenging
multiple areas of law in the information age, this problem is worthy
of widespread inquiry …
Empirical Studies Of Contract, Zev J. Eigen
Empirical Studies Of Contract, Zev J. Eigen
Faculty Working Papers
Since the mid 2000s, a cottage industry has slowly blossomed of empirical research dedicated to advancing accounts of contracts "on the books"--accounting for what contracts tend to purportedly obligate signers to do, and contracts "in action"--accounting for how contracting parties tend to behave. This article reviews this literature, which spans several disciplines, most notably law, economics, and management, identifying eight categories of empirical questions in common across all disciplines, highlighting key findings, points of consensus, and noting areas most pressingly in need of additional research.
The Hierarchy That Wasn’T There: Elevating “Usage” To Its Rightful Position For Contracts Governed By The Cisg, William P. Johnson
The Hierarchy That Wasn’T There: Elevating “Usage” To Its Rightful Position For Contracts Governed By The Cisg, William P. Johnson
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
Under domestic U.S. sales law, usage of trade is relevant in ascertaining the meaning of an agreement, and it can be used to supplement, qualify, or explain an agreement. However, usage of trade may not be used under domestic U.S. sales law to contradict a written agreement. Moreover, any course of performance or course of dealing between the parties will prevail over inconsistent usage of trade. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, or CISG, similarly provides for consideration of usage to establish the terms of the agreement between the parties, as well as to …
A Short Commentary On Mfm V Fish & Co, Linus Koh
Unequal Promises, Aditi Bagchi
Unequal Promises, Aditi Bagchi
All Faculty Scholarship
This essay explores the nature and implications of a type of inequality that is widespread but largely ignored. Promises deliver important ethical value, and commercial promises, because they are our most common experience of promise with strangers, are of special value. But not all commercial promises generate that value equally. This paper makes the following claims: (1) while some retail promises are promises either to deliver a good or service, or to pay some compensation, other retail promises are simple promises to deliver a good or service; (2) retail promises in high-end markets are more likely to have the simple …
Intent To Contract, Gregory Klass
Intent To Contract, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
There is a remarkable difference between black-letter contract laws of the United States and England. In England, the existence of a contract is supposedly conditioned on the parties' intent to be legally bound, while section 21 of the Second Restatement of Contracts states that "[n]either real nor apparent intention that a promise be legally binding is essential to the formation of a contract." There are also differences within U.S. law on the issue. While section 21 describes courts' approach to most contracts, the parties' intent to contact can be a condition of validity of preliminary agreements, domestic agreements and social …
The Best Puffery Article Ever, David A. Hoffman
The Best Puffery Article Ever, David A. Hoffman
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article provides the first extensive legal treatment of an important defense in the law of fraud and contracts: puffery. Legal authorities commonly say they make decisions about whether defendants should be able to utter exaggerated, optimistic, lies based on assumptions about buyer behavior, concluding that consumers do not rely on such speech. However, as the Article shows, such analyses are proxies for a deeper analytical question: does the speech encourage or discourage a type of consumption activity that the court deems welfare maximizing? The Article presents a novel constitutional analysis of puffery doctrine that focuses on the meaning of …
Annual Survey Of Oklahoma Contract, Consumer, And Commercial Law: 2000-2002, Fred H. Miller
Annual Survey Of Oklahoma Contract, Consumer, And Commercial Law: 2000-2002, Fred H. Miller
Oklahoma Law Review
No abstract provided.
Replacing Strict Liability With A Contract-Based Products Liability Regime, Richard C. Ausness
Replacing Strict Liability With A Contract-Based Products Liability Regime, Richard C. Ausness
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
When strict products liability first appeared on the scene some thirty-five years ago, it was heralded as a boon to consumers whose claims to compensation had hitherto been frustrated by the law of sales. Warranty law, it was said, worked fairly well in purely "commercial" transactions, but tort law did a better job in cases where ordinary consumers suffered personal injuries or property damage from defective products. To be sure, defenders of warranty law pointed out that the newly-drafted Uniform Commercial Code (the "Code" or "U.C.C.") was much more consumer friendly than the old Uniform Sales Act. Nevertheless, the proponents …