Contracts Commons^™

Contracts – Only With Consent, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

My friend and former colleague Omri Ben-Shahar has established a reputation for providing nuanced and well-grounded applications of economic analysis to important problems of contract law. In recent years, he has undertaken the ambitious task of exploring a significant topic at the boundary of contract law: liability for problems that arise out of efforts to form a contract. The essay to which I reply, Contracts Without Consent: Exploring a New Basis for Contractual Liability, is his second work on that topic, following his 2001 article with Lucian Bebchuk entitled Precontractual Reliance. Collectively, these pieces provide a comprehensive analysis …

Un Enfoque Comparativo Sobre La Formacion De Los Contratos Electronicos, Roberto Rosas

Faculty Articles

Understanding the basic principles governing the formation of contracts is of paramount importance when it comes to figuring out the most appropriate to enter into a new contract or to assess the legality of a contract existing ones. While the basic rules for the forming of general contracts are applicable to most type of contracts, regardless of how they are done, there are some legal rules that apply specify to contracts concluded electronically.

Comparative Study Of The Formation Of Electronic Contracts In American Law With References To International And Mexican Law, Roberto Rosas

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Contracting With Tortfeasors: Mandatory Arbitration Clauses And Personal Injury Claims, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

People thinking about contractual arbitration clauses usually envision the resulting disputes as contractual in nature. However, there is also a group of cases in which the clauses are used to compel arbitration of personal injury claims. This article examines those cases, including the impact of the Federal Arbitration Act on their enforcement. Next, the article considers the ways in which these pre-dispute, mandatory arbitration clauses can disturb the traditional values of procedural justice, contractual fairness, and the enforcement of tort-based duties. Finally, the article proposes changes in the law of arbitration and evaluates whether such changes are politically feasible.

Is A Signed Offer Sufficient To Satisfy The Statute Of Frauds?, Gregory S. Crespi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In this article, the author attempts to clarify the law on the issue of whether a signed offer is a “sufficient writing" to satisfy the statute of frauds requirement. The article seeks to demonstrate that much of the confusion among contract law treatises regarding this issue stems from the writers sometimes failing to distinguish clearly between "common law" state statutes of frauds and UCC Section 2-201. Given the large body of case law in support of allowing signed offers to satisfy the common law statute of frauds requirements, the author argues that courts should be more reluctant to interpret UCC …

Embedded Options In The Case Against Compensation In Contract Law, Robert E. Scott, George G. Triantis

Faculty Scholarship

Although compensation is the governing principle in contract law remedies, it has tenuous historical, economic, and empirical support. A promisor's right to breach and pay damages is only a subset of a larger family of termination rights that do not purport to compensate the promisee for losses suffered when the promisor walks away from the contemplated exchange. These termination rights can be characterized as embedded options that serve important risk management functions. We show that sellers often sell insurance to their buyers in the form of these embedded call options, and that termination fees, including damages, are in essence option …

Self-Enforcing International Agreements And The Limits Of Coercion, Robert E. Scott, Paul B. Stephan

Faculty Scholarship

International law provides an ideal context for studying the effects of freedom from coercion on cooperative behavior. To be sure, almost all academic discussions on the subject begin by asking whether international law constitutes "law." But the category of all "international law" is too big and heterogeneous to permit useful analysis. Whether to regard, say, the rules governing the conduct of war or international humanitarian law as "law" presents radically different issues than analyzing the legal character of the Treaty of Rome (the constitutive instrument of the European Community), or the Warsaw Convention (the instrument governing contracts for the carriage …

Contract Formation In Imperfect Markets: Should We Use Mediators In Deals?, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

This Article asks a simple question: Could third-party mediators be helpful in deals, just as they are in disputes? This Article makes a theoretical argument for such interventions, but also presents preliminary empirical evidence suggesting that transactional mediation may already be taking place.

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …

Valuation Averaging: A New Procedure For Resolving Valuation Disputes, Keith Sharfman

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

In this Article, Professor Sharfman addresses the problem of "discretionary valuation": that courts resolve valuation disputes arbitrarily and unpredictably, thus harming litigants and society. As a solution, he proposes the enactment of "valuation averaging," a new procedure for resolving valuation disputes modeled on the algorithmic valuation processes often agreed to by sophisticated private firms in advance of any dispute. He argues that by replacing the discretion of judges and juries with a mechanical valuation process, valuation averaging would cause litigants to introduce more plausible and conciliatory valuations into evidence and thereby reduce the cost of valuation litigation and increase the …

“All Aboard!” An Overview Of The Continuing Debate Regarding The Enforceability Of Dispute Resolution Provisions Of Filipino Seamen Employment Contracts, Richard V. Blystone

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Measuring Recovery For Non-Contractual Investment, Omri Ben-Shahar, Robert A. Mikos

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Parties who make investments that generate externalities may sometimes recover from the beneficiaries, even in the absence of contract. Previous scholarship has shown that granting recovery, based on either the cost of the investment or the benefit it confers, can provide optimal incentives to invest. However, this article demonstrates that the law often awards recovery that is neither purely cost-based, nor purely benefit-based, and instead equals either the greater-of or lesser-of the two measures. These hybrid approaches to recovery distort incentives to invest. The article demonstrates the prevalence of these practices, and explores informational and related reasons why they emerge. …

Arbitration And Contract: What Are The Law Schools Teaching?, Stephen K. Huber

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Bounded Rationality, The Doctrine Of Impracticability, And The Governance Of Relational Contracts, Donald J. Smythe

ExpressO

This article uses a behavioral economics approach to analyze the effects of the doctrine of impracticability on “relational” contracts -- long-term contractual agreements that are typically adapted to changed circumstances and unforeseen contingencies as they arise. In contrast to conventional law and economics studies, the article concludes that the impracticability doctrine has the potential to improve the efficiency and productivity of a wide range of long-term contractual agreements, and offers normative guidelines as to how the doctrine should be applied. The article also examines and rejects various philosophical objections to the impracticability doctrine, such as the arguments that it interferes …

The Unique Jurisprudence Of Letters Of Credit: Its Origin And Sources, Gao Xiang, Ross P. Buckley

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article seeks to illumine the legal nature of the letter of credit instrument, and catalogue the various sources of law and rules that can govern it; and, by doing so, render a service to those who must quickly come to grips with letter of credit law. The Article is in two parts. The first part examines the legal nature of the letter of credit by looking at its definition, operation, and history and by comparing it with negotiable instruments and contracts. The second part considers the rules, customs, and regulations governing letters of credit and introduces the two fundamental …

Brief For Respondents, Green Tree Financial Corp. V. Bazzle, No. 02-634 (U.S. Mar. 27, 2003), ., Cornelia T. Pillard

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Critical Interventions: Toward An Expansive Equality Approach To The Doctrine Of Good Faith In Contract Law, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article argues that courts should use the doctrine of good faith in contract law to prohibit improper considerations of race in contract formation and performance, and should recognize good faith as a device for eliminating racial subordination that can function beyond the scope of conventional civil rights discourse. Although civil rights laws provide important remedies to victims of discrimination, the elimination of racial subordination cannot remain the exclusive domain of civil rights law. Rather, other substantive areas of law can and should incorporate expansive equality principles to achieve that end. For example, this article demonstrates how the implied obligation …

The Fiction Of Freedom Of Contract - Nursing Home Admission Contract Arbitration Agreements: A Primer On Preserving The Right Of Access To Court Under Florida Law, Robert Hornstein

St. Thomas Law Review

The primary purpose of this article is to provide a litigation paradigm on how the use of compelled nursing home arbitration agreements in Florida can be successfully challenged and a patient's right of access to the courts preserved. This article includes an examination of the use of compelled arbitration agreements under Florida law and their treatment by the courts. It also includes an analysis of how Florida's courts have generally responded to the widespread use of arbitration provisions. Further, it contains a review of the defenses available under Florida law that can be used to defend against compelled arbitration provisions. …

Accrued Financial Services, Inc. V. Prime Retail, Inc.: Resurrecting Barratry Imposes Detour On Road To Modernization Of Maryland Contracts Jurisprudence, Ross Q. Panko

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Considerations For Sponsorship Contracts Of Olympic Athletes, Leigh Augustine-Schlossinger

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Contractarian Economics And Mediation Ethics: The Case For Customizing Neutrality Through Contingent Fee Mediation, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

Closing The Deal In Contracts: Introducing Transactional Skills In The First Year, David V. Snyder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Idea Men Should Be Able To Enforce Their Contractual Rights: Considerations Rejecting Preemption Of Idea-Submission Contract Claims, Celine Michaud, Gregory Tulquois

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

It is a long-standing and general rule that ideas are "free as the air" as Justice Brandeis eloquently stated in the dissent to the seminal case International News Service v. Associated Press.' This axiom of copyright law expresses the idea that copyright does not protect ideas but only protects the expression of ideas in a work. The distinction between unprotected ideas and protected expression is often referred to as the idea-expression dichotomy...

The principle of the idea-expression dichotomy was initially stated in Baker v. Selden, and later cases further articulated this principle, so that it has become one of the …

Transactional Mediation: Using Mediators In Deals, Scott Peppet

Publications

This article addresses whether third-party mediators could be helpful in deal-making, just as they are in resolving disputes. It makes a theoretical case for such use of mediators and presents preliminary evidence that transactional mediation already is taking place.

Closing The Deal In Contracts: Introducing Transactional Skills In The First Year, David Snyder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Duty To Negotiate In Good Faith: Precontractual Liability And Preliminary Agreement, Aarti Arunachalam

LLM Theses and Essays

Good faith is one concept that defies a clear definition and courts have struggled to understand and establish its scope and ambit. This paper just seeks to analyze the scope of the duty of good faith as understood at the stage when actually no contract has been formed. Despite considerable support for the existence of a duty of good faith, courts in US have not been very receptive in recognizing the duty of good faith especially in the precontractual stage, especially when parties enter into preliminary agreement. Courts have relied on the a number of factors to determine the enforceability …

An Efficiency Analysis Of Contracts For The Provision Of Telephone Services To Prisons, Justin Carver

Federal Communications Law Journal

As the numbers of prisons and prisoners continue to increase, so does the market for prison services. One of the more lucrative segments of this industry is the telephone market. To the extent that the services are provided to the prisoners, the relationship resembles a third party beneficiary contract, but due to the perverse financial incentives and the political climate surrounding prisons and prisoners, neither the state nor the private entity acts in the best interests of the consumers in particular or of society in general. This Article will analyze the efficiency of these contracts, introduce alternate arrangements, and compare …

Leveling The Playing Field: Applying The Doctrines Of Unconscionability And Condition Precedent To Effectuate Student-Athlete Intent Under The National Letter Of Intent, Michael J. Riella

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …