Contracts Commons^™

When Do Claims Challenging A Statute’S Effect On Pre-Existing Contracts Accrue?, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Reciprocal Fairness, Strategic Behavior & Venture Survival: A Theory Of Venture Capital-Financed Firms, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Civil Liability And Remedies In Ohio Securities Transactions, Keith A. Rowley

Scholarly Works

The Ohio Securities Act (“OSA”) was enacted in 1913 to “guard [ ] investors against fraudulent enterprises, to prevent sales of securities based only on schemes purely speculative in character, and to protect the public from swindling peddlers of worthless stocks in mere paper corporations.” The OSA, which is administered by the Ohio Division of Securities (“Division”) and enforced by both the Division and private litigants, regulates the sale and purchase of securities in Ohio. The OSA and the rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to it by the Division are designed both to encourage compliance by those who might otherwise …

Beware Of The Dark Side Of The Farce, Keith A. Rowley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Favorite Insurance Cases Symposium, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Insurance law scholars and teachers sometimes feel, with a mixture of paranoia and justification, that insurance law simply does not receive its proper respect in the hierarchy of legal education and law generally.

Consider the law school curriculum. In none of America’s nearly 200 ABA-approved law schools in insurance law a required course. Nor is it considered a course that, although not required, prudent students “must” be sure to take before they graduate (e.g. Evidence, Corporations). Enrollments may be respectable but the class is seldom oversubscribed, even where the law school is located in an insurance hub city. Although other …

Timeless And Ahead Of Its Time: Lach's V. Fidelity & Casualty Of New York, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

The publication of Judge Keeton's important article “inventing” the reasonable expectations doctrine in 1971 is notable for infusing a good deal of intellectual energy into the study of insurance law, particularly judicial decisions about insurance coverage. Keeton's article, which deduced from cases the principle that courts tended to interpret policies to vindicate the objectively reasonable expectations of the insured, has rightly been viewed as a milestone. It clarified an area of law long seen as inconsistent or result-oriented. It spurred additional important scholarship in the area and elevated insurance caselaw from something of a backwater to at least a respectable …

The Insurance Aftermath Of September 11: Myriad Claims, Multiple Lines, Arguments Over Ocurrence Counting, War Risk Exclusions, The Future Of Terrorism Coverage, And New Issues Of Government Role, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

September 11, 2001, is an unforgettable date for many reasons. In addition to its political, social, and historical importance, it may mark a watershed of insurance history as well. The value of the insurance losses due to the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers is estimated to total at least $35 billion and perhaps $75 billion. In addition, most of the people killed by terrorism were covered by life insurance. Many business operations were affected, invoking possible business interruption coverage. The airplanes that became weapons of destruction carried passengers whose estates are likely to press claims against the …

Legal Protection For Software: Still A Work In Progress, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

Software began as geekware-something written by programmers for programmers. Now, software is a business and consumer staple. Cryptic character-based user interfaces have given way to friendly graphical ones; multi-media is everywhere; people own multiple computers of varying sizes; computers are connected to one another across the globe; email and instant electronic messages have replaced letters and telephone calls for many people.

The issue of whether the law should protect software seems quaint to us now. Over the past twenty-five years, legislatures and courts have concluded that copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark, and contract law all can be used to protect …

The Evolution Of Corporate Law: A Cross- Country Comparison, Katharina Pistor, Yoram Keinan, Jan Kleinheisterkamp, Mark D. West

Faculty Scholarship

The importance of law and legal institutions for economic development is widely acknowledged today. The invention of credit mechanisms to support long-distance trade has been hailed as one of the preconditions for the development of capitalism in Europe. The corporate form is regarded as another milestone for industrialization, the creation of viable market economies, and ultimately economic prosperity. Many former socialist countries quickly enacted new corporate codes or revived their pre-World War Two ("WWII") legislation. The failure of major privatization efforts to enhance enterprise efficiency is attributed to weaknesses in corporate governance, of which the corporate law is a crucial …

Discretion In Long-Term Open Quantity Contracts: Reining In Good Faith, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Long-term contracts often promise to deliver the seller's full output, the buyer's requirements, or some variation on these. For example, an electric utility might enter into a thirty year contract with a coal mine promising that it will take all the coal needed to supply a particular generating plant. These open quantity contracts have raised two issues. The first is whether the promise was illusory. If the utility had no duty to take any coal, a court could have found that there was no consideration and, therefore, no contract. While there was a time when full output and requirements contracts …

A Reexamination Of Glanzer V. Shepard: Surveyors On The Tort- Contract Boundary, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In international commodity transactions, intermediary certifiers of quantity and quality play a crucial role. Sometimes they err, and when they do, the aggrieved party can pursue remedies against the counterparty or against the intermediary, either in contract or tort. The remedy against the intermediary has depended, at least in part, on whether the plaintiff was in privity. Even absent privity, the aggrieved party could possibly recover in tort (or perhaps as a third-party beneficiary). So held Cardozo in the leading New York case Glanzer v. Shepard. Section I of this paper reviews the Glanzer litigation, with special emphasis on how …

Default Rules In Sales And The Myth Of Contracting Out, James J. White

Articles

In this article, I trace the dispute in the courts and before the ALI and NCCUSL over the proper contract formation and interpretation default rules. In Part II, I consider the Gateway litigation. In Part III, I deal with UCITA and the revision to Article 2. In Part IV, I consider the merits of the competing default rules.

Wired, Wonderful West Virginia - Electronic Signatures In The Mountain State, Robin C. Capehart, Mark A. Starcher

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Collapsing "No Damages For Delay" Clause In Florida Public Construction Contracts: A Call For Legislative Change, Alain Lecusay

St. Thomas Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to provide a reasonable and persuasive argument in support of the proposition that Florida should abolish the draconian "No Damages for Delay" clause, as against public policy, in public construction contracts. In particular, this comment attempts to show a pervasive national trend favoring the clause's non-enforceability through myriad judicial exceptions and statutory restrictions. Part I is a primer on the public construction process. It introduces the reader to each of the facets that make up the construction process: design, bidding, award, and construction. Part II argues in favor of invalidating the NDFD clause through …

Copyright Limitations And Contracts. An Analysis Of The Contractual Overridability Of Limitations On Copyright, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Traditional copyright law strikes a delicate balance between an author's control of original material and society's interest in the free flow of ideas, information, and commerce. In today's digitally networked environment, this balance has shifted dramatically to one side, as powerful rights holders contractually impose terms and conditions of use far beyond the bounds set by copyright law. This vitally significant book explores this conflict from its gestation through its current manifestations to its future lineaments and potential consequences. Focusing on statutory copyright limitations that enshrine constitutional rights such as freedom of expression and privacy, foster dissemination of knowledge, safeguard …

Sovereign Bonds And The Collective Will, Lee C. Buchheit, G. Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Footnote For Jack Dawson, James J. White, David A. Peters

Articles

Jack Dawson, known to many at Michigan as Black Jack, taught at the Law School from 1927 to 1958. Much of his work was published in the Michigan Law Review, where he served as a student editor during the 1923-24 academic year. We revisit his work and provide a footnote to his elegant writing on mistake and supervening events. In Part I, we talk a little about Jack the man. In Part II, we recite the nature and significance of his scholarly work. Part III deals briefly with the cases decided in the last twenty years by American courts on …

Civil Procedure By Contract: A Convoluted Confluence Of Private Contract And Public Procedure In Need Of Congressional Control, David H. Taylor, Sara M. Cliffe

University of Richmond Law Review

There is great appeal to the notion that parties to a contract may provide in their agreement for how certain aspects of any dispute that may subsequently arise will be resolved. The appeal is so great, in fact, that both parties and courts have embraced the use and enforcement of pre-litigation agreements ("PLAs"). These agreements take a variety of forms. Parties may agree to the forum in which their dispute will be resolved. They may designate the law that will be applied to the resolution of the dispute. Parties may designate what evidence may or may not be presented as …

Aids Caps, Contraceptive Coverage, And The Law: An Analysis Of The Federal Anti-Discrimination Statutes’ Applicability To Health Insurance, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Traditionally, health insurers have enjoyed the freedom to determine their own terms of coverage, to decide to what extent, if any, patients should be reimbursed for different kinds of treatment, and to establish premium prices. Health insurers typically deny coverage for speech therapy, eye glasses, hearing aids, most foot care, and treatment for infertility. Many insurance providers also exclude or severely limit coverage for mental health, dental care, AIDS, diabetes mellitus, morbid obesity, epilepsy, and alcoholism or drug abuse. Therefore, while some Americans enjoy full coverage for all their health needs, others who have insurance and suffer from serious or …

Rethinking The Legal Oversight Of Benefit Program Exclusions, Mark Berger

Faculty Works

Increasingly, American workers rely upon employers to provide employee benefit programs that include critical health insurance and retirement savings plans. However, employers are finding that providing benefits is a costly undertaking. As a result an increasing number of employers are making use of alternative workforce systems. These involve supplementing a core of full-time workers with contingent employees for whom no commitments are made other than payment for services rendered. Such contingent workers have no expectation of indefinite or continuous employment, and are generally excluded from whatever benefit programs the company may provide.

The increasing use of two-tier employment systems of …

The Rise And Fall Of Promissory Estoppel Or Is Promissory Estoppel Really As Unsuccessful As Scholars Say It Is: A New Look At The Data, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Faculty Publications

This article makes important contributions to the field of empirical promissory estoppel scholarship. First it challenges recent empirical scholarship (by Professors Robert Hillman and Sidney De Long in the 1998 and 1997 Columbia and Wisconsin law reviews). Their scholarship had challenged the view of the vast majority of American Contracts scholarship by proclaiming promissory estoppel to be an unimportant doctrine based on low win rates of tried cases. My article challenges this new orthodoxy based on a comprehensive five year survey of cases. It concludes that it is too soon to announce the death of promissory estoppel and that promissory …

Singing Machines: Boy Bands And The Struggle For Artistic Legitimacy, Maria A. Sanders

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Taking Contracts Private: The Quiet Revolution In Contract Law, Charles L. Knapp

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Two Cheers For Freedom Of Contract, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Once, they say, freedom of contract reigned in American law. Parties could make agreements on a wide variety of subjects and choose the terms they wished. Courts would refrain from questioning the substance of bargains and would ensure only that parties had observed the proper formalities. In interpretation, objectivity was paramount. Courts would seek to ascertain, not what the parties had intended, but what a reasonable observer would understand the parties' words to mean. Contract law was a series of abstractions informed by individual autonomy and judicial deference.

This world, a classical paradise of doctrines with sharp corners, began to …

Resolving Disputes Over Excess Frozen Embryos Through The Confines Of Property And Contract Law, Shelly R. Petralia

Journal of Law and Health

This Article addresses the conflicts that arise due to the increased number of cryogenically frozen embryos produced during in vitro fertilization (IVF). Part I discusses the IVF process, in general. While it recognizes the man's role in the process, it focuses primarily on the physical and emotional hardships that are placed on the woman. Part I also gives the backdrop of the case law in the area of embryo distribution. Part II introduces the idea that an embryo should be reduced to private property, through utilization of the labor and economic theories of property law. Additionally, an embryo's use, rather …

Employee Representation In The Boundaryless Workplace, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Common Law And Statutory Restrictions On Access: Contract, Trespass, And The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

Is copyright law relevant to the terms of access to information? Certainly, few would seriously contend that breaking into a locked filing cabinet to obtain access to a manuscript is not sanctionable, even if the intruder had some purpose that copyright law would applaud with respect to the information contained in the manuscript itself. Many instinctively believe that one must pay the asking price and respect the terms that accompany a copyrighted work or face the consequences under some set of laws like copyrights or contracts. In short, society likely generally believes that market forces regulate the conditions of access …

Sales, Carolyn L. Dessin, Keith A. Rowley, Robyn L. Meadows, Larry T. Garvin

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This article provides a comprehensive survey of significant developments in sales law under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) during the year 2001. The authors analyze key judicial decisions that interpret and apply various provisions of Article 2, covering topics such as contract formation, the statute of frauds, warranties, performance, remedies, and risk of loss. By examining these cases, the article offers insights into how courts are shaping the landscape of sales law, highlighting trends and emerging issues that practitioners and scholars should be aware of

Recovering Attorneys' Fees As Damages Under The U.N. Sales Convention (Cisg): The Role Of Case Law In The New International Commercial Practice, With Comments On Zapata Hermanos V. Hearthside Baking, Harry M. Fletcher

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The conclusion I ultimately draw is that, although the holdings of individual cases are ambiguous, as a group the relevant foreign decisions clearly sanction an award of CISG damages to cover attorneys' fees that would not normally be compensable under U.S. national law. As I discuss in Part III of the article, the firmly-established "American rule" on recovery of attorneys' fees is that, in the absence of a statutory or contractual provision to the contrary, each party to a dispute must bear his or her own attorneys' fees. A line of U.S. cases construing Article 2 of the U.C.C. strongly …

Tort, Contract And The Allocation Of Risk, Joost Blom

All Faculty Publications

Tort and contract, although both descended from a common ancestor in the forms of action at common law, are generally regarded as distinct species of civil liability. A tort is an act or omission that is marked by fault - either intention or negligence. There are also a few strict liability torts - where fault is not required - but they are rare. The damage for which tort provides a remedy is usually physical - either personal injury or property damages - albeit with consequential financial losses included. Pure economic loss remains an exception. Contract is not fault-based. Liability rests …