Contracts Commons^™

Frontispiece On Good Faith: A Functional Approach Within The Ucc, Christina L. Kunz

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines areas of the law with thin jurisprudences on good faith, and how the Uniform Commercial Code’s (UCC’s) express statutory rules have become an active laboratory of experiments on good faith. Part I discusses the general obligation of good faith under the UCC. Part II lays out and discusses how the specific UCC provisions on good faith serve one or more of the following functions: restrict the exercise of one-sided power in a contract, in order to avoid unfair or unexpected results; restrict the range of possible responses to defective performance or to an unexpected event, in order …

Why Not Good Faith?-The Foibles Of Fairness In Closely Held Corporations, Daniel S. Kleinberger

Faculty Scholarship

This essay describes the contours of the shareholder’s duty to be fair and explores some of the problems caused by the law’s imprecision in defining the duty of fairness. Because this duty is best understood as a rejection of old norms, part one of this essay describes the traditional doctrines of intra-corporate responsibility. Part two describes the special characteristics of a close corporation and outlines how those characteristics pushed close corporation law to new concepts of fairness and shareholder duties. Part three attempts to delineate those duties of fairness and also to highlight some of the dangers that arise when …

Ending Our Forebearers' Forbearances: Firrea And Supervisory Goodwill, William K. Black

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Working Backwards: The Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing In Employment Law, Deborah A. Schmedemann

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the covenant of good faith and fair dealing with respect to employment law. This doctrine is at an interesting stage in its development (or decline) in Minnesota and elsewhere. The article begins with the standard exposition of the current state of the law; part I describes the limited scope of the covenant and its limited force in Minnesota employment law. Part II contains my assessment of the courts' handling of the covenant and the promise this theory holds for Minnesota employees and employers. My theses are: First, the courts have thus far failed to develop a sound …

Conflict Of Laws Resolution In Employment Contracts: The West Virginia Approach, Linda M. Gutsell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Choice Of Law Clauses In Consumer Contracts: A Comparative Study Of American And E.E.C. Law, Jean-Marie Henckaerts

LLM Theses and Essays

The selection of the law applicable to a certain relationship may seem to be the sole purpose of choice of law rules. However, it is questionable whether this choice should be made independent from the content of the various laws available. The selection of the most appropriate law cannot disregard the social, economic and political values that form the basis of substantive rules. In modern legal systems, social values such as consumer protection are recognized to a growing extent.

The present work explores the concept of choice of law – namely party autonomy with a focus on consumer contracts in …

The Strategic Structure Of Offer And Acceptance: Game Theory And The Law Of Contract Formation, Avery W. Katz

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this article is to promote a particular research program; namely, the use of game theory to analyze the law of contract formation. Although I will often simply speak of offer and acceptance in my discussion, I mean to refer to a broader set of issues than are commonly denoted by this doctrinal label. My program transcends the narrow issue of whether particular communications technically should be classified as offers and acceptances, and includes questions often analyzed under the rubrics of implication and interpretation. At its broadest, my argument addresses all legal rules that answer two types of …

A Relational Theory Of Default Rules For Commercial Contracts, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between legal rules and the strategies that commercial parties use to deal with risk is among the most important and least understood topics in law and economics. Organizational theorists have generally confined their analyses to the nature of the firm and other permanent relationships. Academic commercial lawyers, in turn, have been far less venturesome than their corporate colleagues in applying fundamental economic insights. Not surprisingly, therefore, we know very little about the inner workings of most commercial relationships. For these reasons (and more) I applaud efforts to integrate economic insights and legal structures, exemplified by Clay Gillette's imaginative …

Nelson V. Logan Motor Sales, Inc.: Providing Damages For Breach Of The Implied Warranty Of Merchantability, Chad A. Cicconi

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Consequential Damages In Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods And The Legacy Of Hadley, Arthur Murphey

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contract Excuse And Bankruptcy Discharge, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Exemptions Of Contract Liability Under The 1980 United Nations Convention, Wanki Lee

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

This article will primarily discuss the United Nations Sales Convention. In interpreting the Convention, the central problem is to what extent Article 79 of the Convention will apply to the various cases. Does it apply only to cases of "force majeure" or "impossibility," i.e., cases in which there is a barrier that prevents performance or makes it impracticable? Or does it apply to cases of "frustration" or "imprévision," i.e., cases in which there is no barrier but the circumstances are radically changed because of a contingency contrary to the basic assumption on which the contract was made? Even if Article …

Drug Testing Of Student Athletes: Some Contract And Tort Implications, Leroy Pernell

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Promulgating The Marriage Contract, Lynn A. Baker

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

I begin Part I of this Article by positing several logically necessary, but insufficient, conditions that precede a state's decision to promulgate a law more aggressively than usual. I then show that each of these conditions was met with regard to the economic terms of the marriage contract in virtually all states by 1975. In Part II, I explore what Louisiana's unusually aggressive promulgation of certain terms of the marriage contract reveals about the legal system's conception of the marital relationship as of 1975. In Part III, I discuss what is added to that conception of the modern marital relationship …

At-Will Employment In Washington: A Review Of Thompson V. Sl Regis Paper Co. And Its Progeny, Richard Wall

Seattle University Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to examine the nature and origin of the issues now being faced by Washington courts in the area of at will employment and to argue that the well-established legal principles governing other kinds of contracts be consistently applied to at will employment contracts. This will result in a proper balance between the desire to protect at will employees from unfair termination and the need to allow employers the freedom to make decisions in the hiring and termination of at will employees without undue interference. This Article will first review the historical development of the …

Whose Beneficiaries Are They Anyway? Copenhaver V. Rogers And The Attorney's Contract To Prepare A Will In Virginia, Brian Adams

University of Richmond Law Review

In a case of first impression in the Commonwealth, the Supreme Court of Virginia recently considered whether an attorney may be liable for drafting a will which results in the failure of a testamentary gift to intended beneficiaries. Historically, will beneficiaries had been denied a means of recovery against attorneys due to a lack of privity between the parties. Although Virginia remains a "strict privity' jurisdiction, it recognizes third-party contract beneficiary claims' and has legislatively abrogated the privity requirement in other areas of the law. The plaintiffs in Copenhaver v. Rogers sought to establish a third-party beneficiary claim as the …

The Surrogate Mother Contract: In The Best Interests Of Society?, Audrey Wolfson Latourette

University of Richmond Law Review

On March 31, 1987, Judge Harvey R. Sorkow upheld, for the first time, the validity of a surrogate mother-contract in his decision, In the Matter of Baby M. In broad and sweeping language, the judge deemed the contract between the natural mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, (termed the surrogate, pursuant to the contract language) and the natural father, William Stern, specifically enforceable. Judge Sorkow thus terminated Whitehead's parental rights to the child she bore and permanently denied her claims for future custody or future visitation. Creating new law, the judge held that baby selling and adoption laws do not pertain to …

Contract Modification And "Self-Help Specific Performance": A Reaction To Professor Narasimhan, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Surrogate Fatherhood?, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Essential Functional Issues In Nepalese Contract Law: A Comparison With United States Law, Tribhuban Dev Bhatta

LLM Theses and Essays

American and Nepalese contract law may be put at two ends of spectrum. The former legal system is a long parent system. This comparative study will probe some of the causes of the stasis in Nepalese contract law by examining the Contract Act, cases adjudicated under it, and related provisions of the other laws. The inquiry is restricted to certain selected areas of functional interest form a Nepalese perspective and does not purport to examine interest interrelated doctrinal or other areas with equal thoroughness. The approach throughout is to study the Anglo-American contract law on the subject and compare Nepalese …

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 …

Rational Decisionmaking About Marriage And Divorce, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The apparent normative goal of modem divorce law is the efficient termination of unsuccessful marriages. Once the couple (or either party) determine that the marriage is no longer satisfactory, then quick and easy exit is deemed desirable. As Carl Schneider suggests, the law has withdrawn from moral discourse about divorce, adopting a neutral stance toward marital dissolution. Although divorce typically imposes formidable psychological and economic costs, there are few legal incentives to remain married, or even to consider thoughtfully the decision to end the marriage. Moreover, although decisions about marriage and divorce have important legal implications, the law does nothing …

Pitfalls Of Public Policy: The Case Of Arbitration Agreements, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

As the juxtaposition of these quotations suggests, judges have long held disparate views on the legitimacy and value of “public policy” considerations as a basis for legal decision making. The popular notion posits that Justice Holmes and legal realists carried the day, making public policy analysis an ordinary part of the adjudication process. The story, of course, is more complex than this legal version of Don Quixote. Many judges and lawyers, including Justice Holmes in other writings, continued to speak of adjudication in more formalist and positivist terms, with most laypersons in apparent agreement. Judge Burroughs' view of public policy …

Contracts For Deed In Oklahoma: Obsolete But Not Forgotten, Drew L. Kershen

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Jurisprudential Oaks From Mythical Acorns: The Hart‐Dworkin Debate Revisited, Andrew B.L. Phang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article attempts to demonstrate, via the famous Hart-Dworkin debate on the nature and functions of judicial discretion, that substantial jurisprudential disputes as well as theories can, and do, arise from misconceived critiques, whether intended or otherwise. It also seeks to show that, whilst Dworkin's initial critique of Hart was misconceived, his theory of adjudication that arose as a result of responses to his initial views is a positive contribution to learning, although I argue that Dworkin's views are not, in the final analysis, sufficiently persuasive to constitute a radical departure from Hart's own views.

Whither Economic Duress? Reflections On Two Recent Cases, Andrew B.L. Phang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

From its rather tentative and extremely recent beginnings, I the law relating to economic duress has developed at a relatively rapid pace during the last decade or so. We have had a series of decisions from various courts and jurisdictions* which, collectively at least, affirm the existence of the doctrine in English law. The pronouncements at the highest levels, however, have not purported to be definitive, and, as we shall see, have certainly not aided in a clarification and systematization of the doctrine of economic duress. The two recent decisions, which are the subject of the present comment, have merely …

The Case For Market Damages: Revisiting The Lost Profits Puzzle, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

An old and cardinal rule of contract law requires that expectancy damages for breach of contract put the injured party in the position she would have occupied had the contract been performed. Courts and commentators have accepted this full performance compensation principle as the central objective of the expectancy remedy, pursuant to which they have developed many more precise formulas for various types of cases. But the simplicity of the full performance principle disguises substantial problems in its application. One of the least recognized of these problems is the tendency of courts and commentators to determine the contractual expectancy ex …

Buyer's Remedies And Warranty Disclaimers: The Case For Mistake And The Indeterminacy Of U.C.C. Section 1-103, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

The primary purpose of this article is not to end the longstanding malaise surrounding section 1-103, but to illuminate its existence and encourage a serious reconsideration of the extent to which common law and equitable principles serve as sources of law in resolving cases under the Code. A greater appreciation of the importance of this issue to commercial law development will result in an approach which makes the law more predictable and which better facilitates the essential need to keep the Code responsive to commercial practice. Part II of this article introduces the context within which section 1-103 will be …

Rings And Promises, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The diamond ring rapidly changed from a relatively obscure token of affection to what amounted to an American tradition. It is customary to explain such a shift in demand in terms of an increase in income, a change in relative prices, or a change in tastes. This assumes a stable legal setting that contracts are enforceable. But if the enforceability of a contract is problematic, what formerly was a relatively costly (hence unused) form of private ordering may become more viable (Kronman: 5). This paper looks at the change in America's demand for diamonds during the period 1930-1985, not as …