Contracts Commons^™

The Richness Of Contract Theory, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

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The Richness Of Contract Theory, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a review of The Richness of Contract Law: An Analysis and Critique of Conemporary Theories of Contract Law by Robert A. Hillman (1997).

Throughout the book, Hillman offers a number of useful insights about various issues of contract law and theory--as he has in his numerous law review articles--but in this review the author is concerned with his overall theme: a general skepticism about "unifying" or "highly abstract" contract theories that fail to mirror the richness of contract law. In this regard, Hillman stands in the "realist" tradition of the previous generation of contracts scholars. Hillman attempts …

The Death Of Reliance, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the mid-1970s, it was an article offaith that contract was not properly conceived as a means by which persons could, by their own choice, make law for themselves to govern their relations. Instead, contract was thought best conceived as the rectification of injuries persons may have caused by their verbal conduct in much the same way that persons have a duty to rectify the injuries caused by their physical acts. With contracts, these injuries consisted of detrimental reliance on the words of another. So conceived, both contract and tort duties are imposed by law, and do not arise from …

...And Contractual Consent, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Part I, the author contends that when economists persistently ignore the importance of contractual consent, they are missing the crucial problem of legitimacy. In Parts II and IV, he responds to the criticisms of his consent theory of contract advanced by Jay Feinman and Dennis Patterson. Both Feinman and Patterson object to the enterprise in which the author and others are engaging, and he explains why each is wrong to dismiss the current debate over default rules. Finally, in contrast, in Part III the author shows how Steven Burton's theory of default rules, which he finds most congenial, is …

The Power Of Presumptions, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Once you start to notice it, you see it everywhere. Burden-shifting is pervasive.The author began to notice the power of presumptions when examining how to protect the rights "retained by the people" referred to in the Ninth Amendment without having to enumerate each one. He proposed the creation of a "presumption of liberty" that would extend the same protective presumption now accorded freedom of speech to all other rightful exercises of liberty. This presumption would shift the burden to the government to justify as necessary and proper any restriction on the rightful exercise of any liberty.

Rational Bargaining Theory And Contract: Default Rules, Hypothetical Consent, The Duty To Disclose, And Fraud, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author begins by responding to Coleman's rational choice approach to choosing default rules. In part I, he applies the expanded analysis of contractual consent and default rules that he had recently presented elsewhere to explain how rational bargaining, hypothetical consent, and actual consent figure in the determination of contractual default rules. Whereas Coleman advocates the centrality of rational bargaining analysis to this determination, the author explains why rational bargaining theory's role must be subsidiary to that of consent.

The author then turns his attention to Coleman's appraisal of contracting parties' duty to disclose information concerning the resources that are …

Conflicting Visions: A Critique Of Ian Macneil’S Relational Theory Of Contract, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Perhaps the leading contemporary critic of placing consent at the center of contract law has been Ian Macneil. In his book The New Social Contract as well as in a series of complex and richly textured articles spanning nearly two decades, Macneil has eloquently presented and defended his now well-known relational theory of contract. It is a tribute to the important core of previously neglected truth in Macneil's theory that, for all its complexity, the theory can be summarized succinctly.

Macneil presents nothing less than a "holistic" "social theory" of human exchange--with particular emphasis on the human activity of "projecting …

The Sound Of Silence: Default Rules And Contractual Consent, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this article, the author challenges the received wisdom of "gap-filling in the absence of consent" by showing how the concept of default rules bolsters the theoretical importance of consent. He accomplishes this by expanding and refining his analysis of a "consent theory of contract." The author proposes that the concept of default rules reveals consent to be operating at two distinct levels of contract theory. First, the presence of consent to be legally bound is essential to justify the legal enforcement of any default rules. Second, nested within this overall consent to be legally bound, consent also operates to …

Some Problems With Contract As Promise, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The promise theory views the origin of contract in the making of a promise. This means that it views the creation of contracts as arising, in an important part, from the voluntary acts of promisors rather than from third parties like the State. In this regard, the theory facilitates the classical liberal value of freedom to contract. The promise theory also supports the notion that contracts should be interpreted according to the terms of the promise rather than by imposing terms on the parties. In this regard, the theory facilitates the classical liberal value of freedom from contract. These strengths …

Corporate Takeover Of Teaching Hospitals, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article explores the potential and the dangers of this novel form of collaboration between academic medicine and the for-profit world. The author focuses on those arrangements--purchases and leasing agreements--by which investor-owned corporations operate, for a profit, hospitals that serve as major medical teaching and research sites. He begins by reviewing how the evolving needs of academic medical centers and for-profit hospital chains have generated mutual interest in such arrangements. The author then considers some frequently expressed ethical, economic, and other public policy objections to the provision of hospital services by for-profit firms. Opponents of the acquisition and leasing of …

The Internal And External Analysis Of Concepts, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Abstract Right and the Possibility of a Nondistributive Conception of Contract: Hegel and Contemporary Contract Theory, Peter Benson criticizes the authors presentation of a consent theory of contract, in part, on the ground that it "refers only to the empirical facts of the requirements of human needs and fulfillment. Like [Charles] Fried's [account], his conception of the consensual basis of a contract does not preserve the required standpoint of abstraction. " On this basis Professor Benson concludes that the author's approach fails to "provide an adequate elucidation of a nondistributive conception of contract.

By explaining contractual obligation …

A Critical Legal Studies Perspective On Contract Law And Practice, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The critical legal studies movement is often viewed as highly theoretical, characterized by impenetrable scholarship that makes frequent reference to the work of"famous dead Europeans." Indeed, the theoretical detachment of critical legal studies from real-world concerns has led some to speculate that the methodologies of the movement are so abstract and stylized that they could be used to deny the validity of distinctions that we commonly rely upon in everyday life-even something as basic as the distinction between up and down. Given the level of abstraction at which most critical legal studies analysis occurs, one might wonder why a critical …

Contract Scholarship And The Reemergence Of Legal Philosophy, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It has been thirty years since Arthur Corbin's eight-volume treatise on contracts appeared in condensed form as a one-volume edition. No scholarly book on contract law of comparable scope has been published since. This void in contract law scholarship has been filled only by the occasional law review article, by books discussing particular aspects of contract law, and by the ongoing revisions of the Restatement of Contracts that culminated in the publication of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts in 1979.

The dominant legal climate has not been friendly to any form of literature that attempts to explicate legal doctrine systematically, …

Baby M Reconsidered, Judith C. Areen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Surrogate mothering depends on treating procreation, an activity traditionally viewed as an integral aspect of family life (and family law), as a service to be purchased in the marketplace and governed by the rules of contract law. Thus surrogacy forces us to confront the differences between two of our most fundamental institutions-the family and the market.

Squaring Undisclosed Agency Law With Contract Theory, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The law of undisclosed agency has long been considered an anomaly of contract theory. While few disapprove of its content, this body of law does not appear to square with our theoretical understanding of contractual obligation. In this Article, Professor Barnett applies a "consent theory of contract" to explain and critically evaluate the law of undisclosed agency. After showing why standard contract theories have been unable to explain the established doctrine in this area, he analyzes the nexus of obligations arising from the consensual "triangular flow of rights" among the three parties to the paradigm undisclosed agency relationship. He then …

A Consent Theory Of Contract, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We look to legal theory to tell us when the use of legal force against an individual is morally justified. We look to contract theory, in particular, to tell us which interpersonal commitments the law ought to enforce. Contract theory at present, however, does not provide a satisfactory answer to this question. The five best known theories or principles of contractual obligation-the will theory, the reliance theory, the fairness theory, the efficiency theory and the bargain theory each have very basic shortcomings. A consent theory of contract avoids these difficulties while explaining coherent obligation in a plausible and coherent manner.