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Contract

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Articles 91 - 120 of 297

Full-Text Articles in Contracts

Common Sense And Contract Law: Fear Of A Normative Planet?, Thomas Joo Mar 2016

Common Sense And Contract Law: Fear Of A Normative Planet?, Thomas Joo

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.


Development And Distrust: A Critique Of The Orthodox Path To Economic Prosperity, W. Tyler Perry Feb 2016

Development And Distrust: A Critique Of The Orthodox Path To Economic Prosperity, W. Tyler Perry

Northwestern University Law Review

The dominant strain of law and development theory holds that strong property rights are a necessary condition for economic growth. Nonetheless, China has experienced thirty years of frenetic growth absent strong property rights. This Note explores this phenomenon through an analysis of a unique corporate form that has come to underlie most of the publicly traded Chinese Internet sector—the Variable Interest Entity (VIE). The VIE is, at its core, a series of contracts designed to mimic “true” ownership. As such, the VIE problematizes law and development theory in two primary ways. First, the contract-based ownership system does not provide the …


Waive Goodbye To Appellate Review Of Plea Bargaining: Specific Performance Of Appellate Waiver Provisions Should Be Limited To Extraordinary Circumstances, Holly P. Pratesi Jan 2016

Waive Goodbye To Appellate Review Of Plea Bargaining: Specific Performance Of Appellate Waiver Provisions Should Be Limited To Extraordinary Circumstances, Holly P. Pratesi

Brooklyn Law Review

In the federal criminal justice system, plea bargaining remains the predominant method for disposing of cases. An important provision in most plea agreements consists of the waiver of the defendant’s right to appeal the conviction or sentence. This note explores the constitutional, contractual, and policy implications of a recent Third Circuit decision that would allow specific performance as a remedy where a defendant’s only breach of the plea agreement consists of filing an appeal arguably precluded by an appellate waiver provision. This note argues that the approach taken by the Third Circuit in United States v. Erwin could effectively preclude …


The Common Law Of Contract And The Default Rule Project, Alan Schwartz, Robert E. Scott Jan 2016

The Common Law Of Contract And The Default Rule Project, Alan Schwartz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The common law developed over centuries a small set of default rules that courts have used to fill gaps in otherwise incomplete contracts between commercial parties. These rules can be applied almost independently of context: the market damages rule, for example, requires a court only to know the difference between market and contract prices. When parties in various sectors of the economy write sales contracts but leave terms blank, courts fill in the blanks with their own rules. As a consequence, a judicial rule that many parties accept must be "transcontextual": parties in varied commercial contexts accept the courts' rule …


After The Golden Victory: Still Lost At Sea, Victor P. Goldberg Jan 2016

After The Golden Victory: Still Lost At Sea, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In The Golden Victory the House of Lords held that when determining damages for a repudiatory breach, in a conflict between the compensatory principle and finality, the former trumped. The decision was recently ratified by the Supreme Court in Bunge SA v. Nidera BV. The claim in this paper is that this was a mistake; properly conceived, there is no conflict. The contract should be viewed as an asset and compensation would entail determining the decline in value of that asset at the time of the breach. The value of the contract at that moment would reflect the possible effects …


Variation In Boilerplate: Rational Design Or Random Mutation?, Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, Robert E. Scott Jan 2016

Variation In Boilerplate: Rational Design Or Random Mutation?, Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Standard contract doctrine presumes that sophisticated parties choose their terminology carefully because they want courts or counterparts to understand what they intended. The implication of this “Rational Design” model of rational behavior is that courts should pay careful attention to the precise phrasing of contracts. Using a study of the sovereign bond market, we examine the Rational Design model as applied to standard-form contracting. In NML v. Argentina, federal courts in New York attached importance to the precise phrasing of the boilerplate contracts at issue. The industry promptly condemned the decision for a supposedly erroneous interpretation of a variant of …


Kcon Xi Essay Introduction: Compulsory Arbitration And Adhesion Contracts In The Age Of Donald Trump, Peter Linzer Jan 2016

Kcon Xi Essay Introduction: Compulsory Arbitration And Adhesion Contracts In The Age Of Donald Trump, Peter Linzer

St. Mary's Law Journal

Remarks of Peter Linzer on receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the 11th International Contracts Conference (K-CON XI). Revised after Election Day, 2016.


Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison Oct 2015

Copyright As Contract, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

Copyright is essentially a contract between the author and the public with the government acting as the agent of the public. The consideration received by authors is defined by duration and breadth of exclusivity. The consideration for the public is the creation of a "work" that will be available on a limited basis for the life of the author plus 70 years and then available without limit after that. If there were no transaction costs at all, it would be possible to "pay" authors different amounts of exclusivity. Perhaps a greeting card would get one holiday season of exclusivity, if …


Privity's Shadow: Exculpatory Terms In Extended Forms Of Private Ordering, Mark P. Gergen Oct 2015

Privity's Shadow: Exculpatory Terms In Extended Forms Of Private Ordering, Mark P. Gergen

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.


Contract Design And The Shading Problem, Robert E. Scott Oct 2015

Contract Design And The Shading Problem, Robert E. Scott

Marquette Law Review

Despite recent advances in our understanding of contracting behavior, economic contract theory has yet to identify the principal causes and effects of contract breach. In this Article, I argue that opportunism is a primary explanation for why commercial parties deliberately breach their contracts. I develop a novel variation on opportunism that I identify as “shading,” a behavior that more accurately describes the vexing problems courts face in rooting out strategic behavior in contract litigation. I provide some empirical support for the claim that shading behavior is both pervasive in litigation over contract breach and extremely difficult for generalist courts to …


Internet Giants As Quasi-Governmental Actors And The Limits Of Contractual Consent, Nancy Kim, D.A. Jeremy Telman Jan 2015

Internet Giants As Quasi-Governmental Actors And The Limits Of Contractual Consent, Nancy Kim, D.A. Jeremy Telman

Faculty Scholarship

Although the government’s data-mining program relied heavily on information and technology that the government received from private companies, relatively little of the public outrage generated by Edward Snowden’s revelations was directed at those private companies. We argue that the mystique of the Internet giants and the myth of contractual consent combine to mute criticisms that otherwise might be directed at the real data-mining masterminds. As a result, consumers are deemed to have consented to the use of their private information in ways that they would not agree to had they known the purposes to which their information would be put …


Frictions And The Persistence Of Inferior Contract Terms, Royce De R. Barondes Jan 2015

Frictions And The Persistence Of Inferior Contract Terms, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

A rudimentary conceptualization of the development of ancillary contract terms would assert competition will result in terms that are joint-wealth-maximizing for merchants and customers. Building on developments in modeling frictions in markets, this article presents simple models of frictions in multi-period contracting as to ancillary contract terms. The modeling illustrates that, for plausible parameter estimates of frictions, combinations of switching costs and investigation costs may allow collectively inferior contract terms to persist in consumer transactions. The results are in harmony with recent evidence illustrating the infrequency with which consumers actually read contract terms. The modeling identifies circumstances where this opportunistic …


Breaking “Too Darn Bad”: Restoring The Balance Between Freedom Of Contract And Consumer Protection, Stephanie Drotar Jan 2015

Breaking “Too Darn Bad”: Restoring The Balance Between Freedom Of Contract And Consumer Protection, Stephanie Drotar

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.


Getting Paid In The Naked Economy, Meredith R. Miller Jan 2015

Getting Paid In The Naked Economy, Meredith R. Miller

Scholarly Works

“It’s the end of work as we know it,” reports consulting firm Accenture in a paper about the “rise of the extended workforce.” (Gartside, Silverstone, Farley & Cantrell, Trends Reshaping the Future of HR: The Rise of the Extended Workforce, at 3 (Accenture 2013). The report predicts that, “[i]n the future, organizations’ competitive success will hinge on...workers who aren’t employees at all.” The legal nature of employment is changing and has been changing for quite some time; fewer and fewer workers are “employees.”

It is not new or novel to recognize that, from a legal perspective, there are many benefits …


The Short Road Home To Delaware: Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund V. Chevron, Anne M. Tucker Nov 2014

The Short Road Home To Delaware: Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund V. Chevron, Anne M. Tucker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

One of the biggest Delaware Supreme Court cases of 2013 wasn’t. The Delaware Court of Chancery opinion in Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund v. Chevron Corp., upheld the enforceability of Delaware forum selection clause bylaws unilaterally adopted by corporate boards of directors. It was widely expected that the Delaware Supreme Court would uphold the Court of Chancery’s opinion. However, Plaintiffs dismissed their appeal and moved to dismiss their remaining claims in the Court of Chancery, leaving intact Chancellor Strine’s strong support of forum selection clauses. National Industries Group (Holding) v. Carlyle Investment Managements L.L.C. and TC Group, L.L.C., a 2013 …


Prosser's Bait-And-Switch: How Food Safety Was Sacrificed In The Battle For Tort's Empire, Denis W. Stearns Sep 2014

Prosser's Bait-And-Switch: How Food Safety Was Sacrificed In The Battle For Tort's Empire, Denis W. Stearns

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Licence Agreements And Copyright: An Examination Of The Issues, Lisa Di Valentino May 2014

Licence Agreements And Copyright: An Examination Of The Issues, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

In this presentation I will discuss some of the factors that are relevant to an understanding of the relationship between copyright and private ordering of legal obligations such as licensing agreements and technological protection measures. I will conclude that there is a strong argument to be made that provisions purporting to limit fair dealing and other exceptions may be unenforceable.


Efficient Breach, Gregory Klass Apr 2014

Efficient Breach, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The theory of efficient breach is the best known, and the most controversial, product of nearly half a century of economic analysis of contract law. In its simplest form, which is the one that dominates the legal imagination, the theory argues that expectation damages are good because they allow, even encourage, a party to breach when performance becomes inefficient, thereby increasing social welfare. Many noneconomists assume the theory is well supported by principles of neoclassical economics. Thus critics commonly focus on the theory’s moral failings, or on problems with the neoclassical approach more generally. But today no economic thinker defends …


Sino-American Contract Bargaining And Dispute Resolution, Garrick Apollon Feb 2014

Sino-American Contract Bargaining And Dispute Resolution, Garrick Apollon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article offers information on international trade disputes between the U.S. and China. Topics include economic interdependency of Sino-American trade, cross-legal and cross-cultural relationships between the U.S. and China, and the historical and cultural preference for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in China. Other topics include learning of cross-cultural management and international business negotiation.


Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca Jan 2014

Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

For several years, courts have been improperly calculating damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically-modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent’s status as a de facto standard essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, …


Are You Free To Contract Away Your Right To Bring A Negligence Claim?, Scott J. Burnham Jan 2014

Are You Free To Contract Away Your Right To Bring A Negligence Claim?, Scott J. Burnham

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores the enforceability of the exculpatory clause—a contract term in which one party agrees to give up the right to bring a negligence claim against the other party. A spectrum of views on whether a contract containing such a clause is aberrant or not is presented and analyzed, followed by the author’s view of the rubric by which the enforceability of the clause should be measured. The article concludes by deconstructing one contract in which the clause was found.


Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García Jan 2014

Penalty Default Licenses: A Case For Uncertainty, Kristelia A. García

Publications

Research on the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content has revealed an unlikely symbiosis between uncertainty and efficiency. Contrary to received wisdom, which tells us that in order to increase efficiency, we must increase stability, this Article suggests that uncertainty can actually be used to increase efficiency in the marketplace. In the music industry, the battle over terrestrial performance rights--that is, the right of a copyright holder to collect royalties for plays of a sound recording on terrestrial radio--has raged for decades. In June 2012, in a deal that circumvented the statutory license for sound recordings for the …


Contractually Adopted Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith Oct 2013

Contractually Adopted Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

The Delaware Supreme Court recently referred to “contractually adopted fiduciary duties.” Although some commentators, including Larry Ribstein, view fiduciary duties as a type of contract term, the notion of contractually adopted fiduciary duties is incoherent. The need to opt in to fiduciary duties would arise in only two circumstances: (1) fiduciary relationships that do not invoke fiduciary duties without contractual authorization, and (2) nonfiduciary relationships in which the parties wish to invoke fiduciary duties that would otherwise be absent. The first category of relationships does not exist, as courts impose fiduciary duties when the structure of a relationship indicates that …


Duty In The Litigation-Investment Agreement: The Choice Between Tort And Contract Norms When The Deal Breaks Down, Anthony J. Sebok, W. Bradley Wendel Oct 2013

Duty In The Litigation-Investment Agreement: The Choice Between Tort And Contract Norms When The Deal Breaks Down, Anthony J. Sebok, W. Bradley Wendel

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article begins by describing the market for investment in commercial litigationA Litigation-investment transactions share features of existing economic relationships, such as commercial lending, liability insurance, contingent fee-financed representation, and venture capital, but none of these existing practices furnishes a suitable analogy for regulating litigation investment. Like third-party insurance, litigation investment is a way to manage the risk associated with litigation while bringing to bear the particular subject matter expertise of a risk-neutral institutional actor. Insurance companies and litigation investors may be systematically in a better position to reduce the risk of litigation, either through risk pooling or information-cost advantages. …


State Preemption Of Cable Television Regulation — Whatever Happened To The Sanctity Of Contract?, William M. Marticorena, Lynda E. Marticorena Feb 2013

State Preemption Of Cable Television Regulation — Whatever Happened To The Sanctity Of Contract?, William M. Marticorena, Lynda E. Marticorena

Pepperdine Law Review

California Government Code section 53066.1 as recently amended gives cable television operators the right to obtain rate increases even in the face of the city or county franchisor opposition. Since most cable franchise agreements allow the franchisor to control rates for the cable service, there is a conflict between the statute and the franchise contracts. This article examines the issue of whether the statute violates the constitutional provisions against the impairment of contracts and whether the franchisor or a subscriber of the service has the necessary standing to assert the constitutional argument.


Reasonable Expectations: Seeking A Principled Application, William A. Mayhew Jan 2013

Reasonable Expectations: Seeking A Principled Application, William A. Mayhew

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Legal Malpractice In A Changing Profession: The Role Of Contract Principles, Vincent R. Johnson Jan 2013

Legal Malpractice In A Changing Profession: The Role Of Contract Principles, Vincent R. Johnson

Cleveland State Law Review

In little more than four decades, the field of American legal ethics has been transformed from an unimportant backwater into a mighty river of legal principles that drives the practice of law in countless respects. Today, this complex matrix of substantive provisions and enforcement mechanisms ensures, to a great extent, that clients are protected from unnecessary harm, that lawyers are safeguarded from improper accusations, and that the provision of legal services is consistent with the public interest. However, the fabric of legal ethics is threatened by a looming transformation of the legal profession. That potential restructuring may revolutionize the delivery …


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 Jan 2013

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

Faculty Scholarship

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. …


Party Sophistication And Value Pluralism In Contract, Meredith R. Miller Jan 2013

Party Sophistication And Value Pluralism In Contract, Meredith R. Miller

Touro Law Review

In a previous article, Contract Law, Party Sophistication and the New Formalism, 75 Missouri L. Rev. 493 (2010), I documented a trend in United States case law and scholarship that fashions a dichotomy between sophisticated and unsophisticated parties. That article set out to explain the trend as a theoretical compromise between formalism and realism in the face of a renewed formalism.

However, as I noted in the previous article, the “new formalism” may not be formalism at all because it retains normative concerns. Indeed, the shift in legal thought may be more appropriately and simply characterized as embracing pluralism. This …


Do Students Turn Over Their Rights When They Turn In Their Papers? A Case Study Of Turnitin.Com, Stephen Sharon Dec 2012

Do Students Turn Over Their Rights When They Turn In Their Papers? A Case Study Of Turnitin.Com, Stephen Sharon

Touro Law Review

Turnitin is a rapidly growing online anti-plagiarism service subscribed to by thousands of schools in the United States. Though the pursuit of honesty and integrity are at the heart of our academic institutions and the Turnitin anti-plagiarism service, there is a fatal flaw in its execution. This comment examines the copyright and fair use arguments presented by four Virginia students asserting that Turnitin violated their intellectual property rights. This comment goes beyond the facts of the four Virginia students to explore the root issues of a service that collects and distributes the copyrighted works submitted to it by hundreds of …