Contracts Commons^™

Copyright Preemption Of Contracts, Christina Bohannan

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring (Social) Class In The Classroom: The Case Of Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon (the "Lucy Case") presents a rich teaching vehicle for the first year of contracts for multiple reasons. Another participant in this symposium has discussed the Lucy Case to laud its value in teaching fact analysis or issue spotting. Others have commented upon the case for its doctrinal utility in explaining the concepts of illusory contracts, exclusive dealing and best efforts. The historical background, the opinions of Benjamin Cardozo and the opportunity to introduce feminist jurisprudence and law and economics concepts into the first year course are also fertile ground for discussion. Knowing …

Rethinking Contract Practice And Law In Japan, John O. Haley

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article explores "the Japanese advantage" in the enforcement of ex ante contract commitments in comparison with the United States, arguing that ostensible convergence of Japanese and United States contract practice in on-going business relationships is based on very different assumptions and conditions. Writing in the early 1960s Takeyoshi KaWashima in Japan and Stewart Macaulay in the United States described prevailing views and practices related to business agreements. Their respective observations indicated a tendency in both countries to avoid formal, legally enforceable contacts. For over four decades scholars on both sides of the Pacific have tended view these observations as …

After The Battle Of The Forms, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

Commercial parties continue to fight the battle of the forms, but electronic contracting is quickly rendering this practice obsolete. In this article I assess the legal landscape for commercial parties after the battle of the forms. In Section I, I briefly describe the (relatively) settled law under U.C.C. § 2-207. I then describe how these rules permit commercial parties to erect a force-field to protect themselves from being subjected to unwanted terms, and the developments in web-based contracting and recent case law applying contract formation principles to electronic contracting. Finally, I discuss how the growth of electronic contracting will eliminate …

Merger To Monopoly To Serve A Single Buyer: Comment, Jonathan Baker

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Contracting Out Of Process, Contracting Out Of Corporate Accountability: An Argument Against Enforcement Of Pre-Dispute Limits On Process, Meredith R. Miller

Scholarly Works

There have been many well-articulated and convincing critiques aimed at mandatory arbitration. Indeed, presently before Congress is proposed legislation titled the Arbitration Fairness Act, that would ban pre-dispute arbitration in the consumer, franchise and employment contexts. However, maligned as the plaintiff bar's pro-lawsuit legislation, the Arbitration Fairness Act is predicted to have very little chance of enactment. Consequently, across varying industries, the pre-dispute arbitration regime endures unheedingly. Thus, this Article sets aside the arguments aimed generally at pre-dispute arbitration clauses and, instead, sets its sights on some of the terms that seem to arise in such clauses. The focus here …

Unintelligent Design In Contract, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

Scholars have expended considerable energy in the effort to "discover" a normative theory of Contract. This Article surveys that effort and concludes that something fundamental about Contract has been missed and has frustrated the search from the outset. Succinctly, Contract doctrine resists the neat formulation theory requires. Theorists' perspectives on Contract may be generalized as attempts to impute either deontology or consequentialism to the Contract law. Focusing largely on deontological constructions of Contract, this Article demonstrates the inconsistencies among the extant heuristics-promise, reliance, and transfer-and more importantly, the failure of any of those constructions to provide a coherent explanation of …

Carrying A Good Joke Too Far, Peter A. Alces, Jason M. Hopkins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Contract Regulation, With And Without The State: Ruminations On Rules And Their Sources, David Snyder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This paper, commenting on the work of Jýrgen Basedow, addresses the legal regulation of economic relations in the context of globalization. The paper applies the idea of the mixed jurisdiction, traditionally focused on legal systems that partake of both the common law and the civil law, to the complex of privately made law and publicly made law that governs contemporary economic relations. Differing criteria that might be used to assess and choose between competing rules or competing systems of rule generation are evaluated, and normative considerations are raised. The paper proposes a model to demonstrate how privately made law, though …

More Views From The Ivory Tower: The Kiss Principle - Keep It Simple, Solicitor, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

How To Repair Unconscionable Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Several doctrines of contract law allow courts to strike down excessively one-sided terms. A large literature explored which terms should be viewed as excessive, but a related question is often ignored—what provision should replace the vacated excessive term? This paper begins by suggesting that there are three competing criteria for a replacement provision: (1) the most reasonable term; (2) a punitive term, strongly unfavorable to the overreaching party; and (3) the maximally tolerable term. The paper explores in depth the third criterion—the maximally tolerable term—under which the excessive term is reduced merely to the highest level that the law considers …

Using The Unidroit Principles To Fill Gaps In The Cisg, John Y. Gotanda

Working Paper Series

The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) sets forth only a basic framework for the recovery of damages, thereby giving a court of tribunal broad authority to determine an aggrieved party’s loss based on circumstances of the particular case. Unfortunately, the lack of specificity has resulted in much litigation, and seemingly conflicting results. To remedy this problem, some have argued that the gaps in the CISG damages provisions should be filled with the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. In this paper, I argue that the gap-filling rules of CISG preclude the UNIDROIT Principles from being …

Consumer Protection And Social Methods Of Continental And Anglo-American Contract Law And The Transnational Outlook, Andreas Maurer

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Debates over the content of recent EU directives and U.S. statutory amendments related to consumer protection highlight the importance of such regulation. Criticism calling for a return to freedom of contract in both regions reflects a tension between social ideals related to equality between private parties, and a deep distrust of state intervention and market regulation. With the rise of private sources for transnational commercial standards and practices, there is an opportunity for states to facilitate selfregulation in lieu of producing public substantive regulations. This approach seems to satisfy a well-established need for consumer protection without exacerbating government intervention in …

Dangers Of Deference To Form Arbitration Provisions, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

This Article is part of my larger project exploring what I call "contracting culture," which borrows from legal realism and relational contract theory by considering contextual factors such as negotiators' relations, understandings, and values. As part of this project, I am pursuing various threads, including empirical studies of how contracting realities impact arbitration. In this Article, however, I focus on how these realities in business to consumer contracts combine with the Federal Arbitration Act and formulaic contract law to foster dangerous deference to form arbitration provisions. The Article then invites procedural reforms and offers suggestions for regulations aimed to temper …

The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contact Damages, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

The law of contracts is complex but remarkably stable. What we lack is a widely accepted interpretation of that law as embodying a coherent set of normative choices. Some scholars have suggested that either economic efficiency or personal autonomy provide unifying principles of contract law. These two approaches, however, seem incommensurable, which suggests that we must reject at least one of them in order to have a coherent theory. This Article dissents from this view and has a simple thesis: Economic accounts of the current doctrine governing contract damages have failed, but efficiency arguments remain key to any adequate theory …

Introduction: Private Ordering In A Globalizing World: Still Searching For The Basics Of Contract, Peer Zumbansen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Governing Contracts - Public and Private Perspectives, Symposium. Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, November 9-10, 2006

Changing Contract Lenses: Unexpected Supervening Events In English, New Zealand, U.S., Japanese, And International Sales Law And Practice, Luke Nottage

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article compares differences in the reasoning underlying contractual relationships between English and New Zealand law and U.S. and Japanese law. It then builds upon an existing framework by adding the notion of didactic formality to identify another important contrast between the laws of these countries. It also discusses how CISG and UPICC fit in to this spectrum. The article concludes by questioning "strong convergence" theory in commercial law worldwide.

Governing Contracts – Public and Private Perspectives, Symposium. Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, November 9-10, 2006

The Making Of Transnational Contract Law, Graf-Peter Calliess

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The definition and creation of contract law is entrenched in a common understanding of the strong role of the modern state in the administration of justice. This article argues that this understanding is currently subject to a fundamental transformation as a result of the increasing demand for legal certainty in cross-border transactions. Traditional concepts of private international law, mainly the law of conflicts and multilateral treaty harmonization, have proven unable to keep pace with globalization, allowing private actors to step in and gain a dominant position in providing legal services to international commerce. The resulting privatization of lawmaking leads to …

The Law Of Society: Governance Through Contract, Peter Zumbansen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper focuses on contract law as a central field in contemporary regulatory practice. In recent years, "governance by contract" has emerged as the central concept in the context of privatization, domestic and transnational commercial relations, and law-and-development projects. Meanwhile, as a result of the neo-formalist attack on contract law, "governance of contract" through contract adjudication, consumer protection law, and judicial intervention into private law relations has come under severe pressure. Building on early historical critique of the formalist foundations of an allegedly private law of the market, the paper assesses the current justifications for contractual governance and posits that …

Conflict Of Interest, Duress And Unconscionability In Quebec Civil Law: Comment On "The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The'churchill Falls Contract", Sarah P. Bradley

Dalhousie Law Journal

As Professor James Feehan and archivist-historian Melvin Baker describe the circumstances in which the fateful renewal provision of the 1969 Churchill Falls hydro contract was negotiated, they suggest that the legal doctrines of conflict of interest or economic duress might offer a basis upon which the contract, or perhaps the renewal provision, could be impugned. In addition to interesting historical insights, their analysis offers the intriguing possibility that the government of Newfoundland may yet succeed in its long-standing battle to rid itself of its obligations under the grossly disadvantageous Churchill Falls contract.

Legal Determinacy And Moral Justification , Jody S. Kraus

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Morality And Contract: The Question Of Paternalism, James Gordley

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Wal-Mart Effect: The Role Of Private Contracting In Global Governance, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article argues that networks of private contracts serve a public regulatory function in the global environmental arena. These networks fill the regulatory gaps created when global trade increases the exploitation of global commons resources and shifts production to exporting countries with lax environmental standards. As critics of trade liberalization have noted, public responses often are inadequate to address the attendant environmental harms. This Article uses empirical data to examine how private contracting regulates firm behavior, focusing on supply-chain contracting. The Article shows that more than half of the largest firms in eight retail and industrial sectors impose environmental requirements …

The Moral Impossibility Of Contract, Peter A. Alces

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Origins Of A Coming Crisis: Renewal Of The Churchill Falls Contract, James P. Feehan, Melvin Baker

Dalhousie Law Journal

The 1969 Churchill Falls contract between Hydro-Quebec and the Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation has been the subject of political controversy. It has also been challenged in the courts, with appeals reaching to the Supreme Court of Canada. Yet, despite the scrutiny of those court cases, the political rhetoric, and the literature that has been spawned by this matter, an extraordinary element of that contract remains remarkably obscure. It is the contract's renewal clause. At the expiry of the contract's forty-four-year term in 2016, that clause requires an automatic renewal for twenty-five additional years at a fixed nominal price that is …

Introductory Remarks: Contract Law And Morality, Nathan B. Oman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paying Eliza: Comity, Contracts, And Critical Race Theory, Or 19th Century Choice Of Law Doctrine And The Validation Of Antebellum Contracts For The Purchase And Sale Of Human Beings, Diane J. Klein

ExpressO

During the period before the Civil War, courts in non-slave-holding states were sometimes called upon to enforce contracts for the purchase and sale of human beings (or contracts whose consideration otherwise consisted of human beings), and sometimes did so, for reasons arguably having more to do with inter-state contract law than with the “peculiar institution” itself. What may be more surprising, and more difficult to understand, is that some “Union” courts went on doing so even after the Civil War ended, when substantive changes of law, together with well-established exceptions to general principles favoring out-of-state contract enforcement, made the contrary …

'Prima Paint' Pushed Compulsory Aribitration Under The 'Erie' Train, Richard L. Barnes

ExpressO

As the face of commerce changes, the law usually follows, albeit at some distance. The United States Supreme Court has recently sped the pace. In a line of cases, some old, some recent, but all feeding off of one another, the Court has held that challenges to agreements which contain arbitration provisions must go to the arbitrator first. Courts may hear formational challenges only where they challenge the arbitration provision alone. In the Supreme Court, arbitration, with its vast potential for abuse as well as for good, has found a friend.

The Court’s doctrine of choice, “severability,” raises serious concerns …

The Hidden Harm Of Law And Economics, Daniel I A Cohen

ExpressO

The paper deals with the adverse psychodynamic consequences to an individual and to society, immediately and in the long run, of dissolving individual responsibility for fault as in the doctrine of Law and economics.

The Search Interest In Contract, Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Scholarly Articles

Parties often do not negotiate for contract terms. Instead, parties search for the products, terms, and contractual counterparties they desire. The traditional negotiation centered view of contract continues to lead courts to try to construe the meaning of the parties where no meaning was negotiated, and to waste time determining the benefits of bargains that were never struck. Further, while courts have ample tools to validate specifically negotiated contract terms, courts lack the tools to respond to searched-for terms. Although the law and literature have long recognized that there is a disconnect between the legal fictions of negotiation and the …