Contracts Commons^™

Dismantling Democracy: Common Sense And The Contract Jurisprudence Of Frank Easterbrook, Deborah W. Post

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Boundaries Of Extracompensatory Relief For Abusive Breach Of Contract, The , Nicholas J. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The idea of extracompensatory damages for abusive breach of contract presents a fundamental conflict. Contract doctrine aims to facilitate exchanges. Extracompensatory damages are disincentives. These aims are essentially irreconcilable. And traditionally the goal of facilitating exchanges has trumped any interest in punishing bad conduct. But there is a lingering sense that sometimes a proportionate response to bad conduct surrounding breach requires more than the traditional measure of damages. At the edges of contract doctrine, two notable experiments manifest the sense that some breaches demand more than compensatory damages. One, the failed California experiment with bad faith breach, permitted the plaintiff …

Regret And Contract "Science", Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Guarantying A Hit (Or Miss): Understanding The Completion Guaranty Business In Hollywood, James W. Coupe

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Titanic was. So was Waterworld. Heck, even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was. Blockbusters? No. Oscar winners? Wrong again. Yet these three films do share one unfortunate characteristic-- each of these pictures was over budget, drastically in some cases. Although caused by different forces and cured by different individuals, each film eventually forced someone to pay a great deal of money unexpectedly. Like many unforeseen expenses, these too can be insured against. Enter stage right, a completion guaranty company.

Any and all film productions financed by non-producer third parties should have a completion guaranty. In the most fundamental terms, a …

The Case For Formalism In Relational Contract, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The distinguished scholars who gathered last year to honor Ian Macneil and to reflect on his contributions to the understanding of contract and contract law represent diverse methodologies, and they approach the vexing problems raised by relational contracts from different normative perspectives. But on one point, I daresay, they all agree: the central task in developing a plausible normative theory of contract law is to specify the appropriate role of the state in regulating incomplete contracts. Complete contracts (to the extent that they exist in the real world) are rarely, if ever, breached since by definition the payoffs for every …

Trade Secrets And Mutual Investments, Gillian L. Lester, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This paper employs an optimal contracting framework to study the question of how courts should adjudicate disputes over valuable trade secrets (such as customer lists). We focus principally on contexts where trade secrets are formed endogenously, through specific, non-contractible investments that could potentially come from either employers or employees (or both). Within such contexts, we argue, an "optimal" trade secret law diverges in many important respects from existing doctrine. In particular, an optimal doctrine would (1) expressly consider the parties' relative skills at making value enhancing investments rather than the mere existence of a valuable informational asset; (2) tend to …

Reforming The Unbargained Contract: Avoiding Bondholder Claims For Surprise Par Calls, Robert S. Blanc, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Until the last couple of decades, interest rates remained relatively stable, thus providing little incentive for corporate borrowers to seek novel ways of redeeming purportedly non-callable bonds at par. But with the advent of junk bonds and periods of great interest rate volatility, issuers have been provided with powerful incentives to explore the relatively uncharted waters of par calls. This Article examines the authority for and legality of such par calls and ultimately proposes a redefinition of the issuer-bondholder relationship. This redefinition accounts for the realities of the marketplace and should lead a return to more settled expectations in both …

The Unfulfilled Promise Of Promissory Estoppel In The Employment Setting, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Although the theory of promissory estoppel enforces promises that induce reasonable detrimental reliance, this article reveals the theory's colossal failure in the non-union employment setting. This conclusion is based on an examination of all of the reported decisions in the United States that discussed promissory estoppel over a two-year period in the mid 1990's. During this period, employees won only 4.23 percent of employment promissory estoppel cases decided on the merits. At first blush, this is very surprising because employers, through their communications, seek to create the expectation of a stable, secure work environment and employees, because of their lack …

The Law Of Partner Expulsions: Fiduciary Duty And Good Faith, Paula J. Dalley

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Honey, I Shrink-Wrapped The Consumer: The Shrink-Wrap Agreement As An Adhesion Contract, Batya Goodman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Great Expectations? A Contract Law Analysis For Preclusive Corporate Lock-Ups, Paul L. Regan

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Daaka V. Carmel Hospital, Dorit Beinisch, Theodor Or, Tova Strasberg-Cohen, Aharon Barak, Shlomo Levin, Mishael Cheshin, Izhak Englard

Translated Opinions

Facts: Appellant was admitted to the hospital for an operation on her left leg, and she signed a consent form agreeing to the operation. Two days later, after being placed on the operating table and receiving sedatives in advance of undergoing anesthesia, she was asked to sign a consent form for a biopsy operation on her right shoulder. She did so, and the biopsy was performed and did not reveal malignancy. After being released from the hospital, her shoulder remained stiff. Appellant sued the hospital for negligence, claiming negligence in failing to receive her informed consent, in the decision to …

Paternalism In The Law Of Marriage, Jeffrey E. Stake

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "New Conservatism" In Contract Law And The Process Of Legal Change, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Of Textualism, Party Autonomy, And Good Faith, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Deshet V. Eliyahu, Shlomo Levin, Jacob Turkel, Eliahu Mazza

Translated Opinions

Facts: The deceased left a will devising his estate to his sons, to be distributed among them only after the death of their mother. The sons renounced their gift under the will and, together with their mother and sister (who had not been provided for in the will), sought to inherit their intestate share by law. The executrices of the will objected.

Held: Justice Levin, with Justice Turkel concurring, held that the sons’ renunciation was clearly designed to frustrate the condition set by the will for their inheritance, namely that they would inherit only after their mother’s death. As a …

Second Generation Of Law And Economics Of Conflict Of Laws: Baxter's Comparative Impairment And Beyond, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, William H. Allen

Scholarly Publications

In his 1963 article in the Stanford Law Review, “Choice of Law and the Federal System,” Professor William F. Baxter criticized the choice-of-law approach of the First Restatement of the Conflict of Laws. According to the Restatement, courts should apply the law of the state where the last act or event deemed necessary to create a cause of action occurred. In contrast, Baxter advocated a comparative-impairment approach, whereby judges were obligated to apply the law of the state whose public policy would suffer the greatest impairment if its law was not applied. The authors contend that although Baxter’s approach caries …

The Rise Of America's Two National Pastimes: Baseball And The Law, Cleta Deatherage Mitchell

Michigan Law Review

Mark McGwire's seventieth home run ball sold at auction in January of this year for $3,005,000. In late 1998, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos sued a former Orioles manager and his daughter in the circuit court of Cook County, Illinois. Angelos alleged that the original lineup card from the 1995 game when Cal Ripken, Jr., broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game record belongs to the Orioles, not to the former manager and certainly not to his daughter. There may be no crying in baseball, but there is money. And wherever earthly treasure gathers two or more, a legal system arises. From …

Peripheral Perspectives On Musical Orders, Hanne Petersen

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arbitration, Labor Contracts, And The Ada: The Benefits Of Pre-Dispute Arbitration Agreements And An Update On The Conflict Between The Duty To Accommodate And Seniority Rights, Jan William Sturner

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tort Law—Tortious Interference With Contract: The Arkansas Supreme Court Clarifies Who Has The Burden And What They Have To Prove. Mason V. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 333 Ark. 3, 969 S.W.2d 160 (1998)., Odette Woods

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Employment Contract, Ian Ayres, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article consists of Professors Ian Ayres and Stewart Schwab 's presentation given at the Economic Analysis of State Employment Law Issues Symposium. Following the presentation, audience members and the presenters participated in a discussion concerning employment contracts. The Journal staff and Professors Ayres and Schwab compiled and edited some of these questions and responses.

Of Textualism, Party Autonomy, And Good Faith, Michael P. Van Alstine

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Franchisor Liability For The Torts Of Its Franchisees: The Case For Substituting Liability As A Guarantor For The Current Vicarious Liability, John L. Hanks

Articles

The author reviews the justifications for applying the law of vicarious liability in the franchising context and concludes that its application is often inefficient and arbitrary. He argues that the employee-independent contractor dichotomy used by courts to determine franchisor liability is not well-suited to franchising, where the relationship encompasses both concepts. He proposes that vicarious liability not be applied in the franchising context. Instead, the courts by case law or state legislatures by statute should impose a guarantor status on franchisors that would expose them to liability for the torts of the franchisees only if the franchisee was unavailable to …

An Inquiry Into Several Difficult Problems In Enacting China's Uniform Contract Law, Wang Lliming, Keith Hand

Washington International Law Journal

Translator's Forward: In March of 1999, China's Ninth National People's Congress ("NPC") passed the Contract Law of People's Republic of China. The new law is the product of nearly six years of drafting work by China's Legislative Affairs Commission and contains over 400 articles, including 129 general contract provisions and 299 articles dealing with specific types of contracts. When the law takes effect on October 1, 1999, it will unify China's contract law by replacing the three principal contract statutes currently in force, the Economic Contract Law, the Foreign-related Economic Contract Law, and the Technology Contract Law. The passage of …

Mcc-Marble Ceramic Center: The Parol Evidence Rule And Other Domestic Law Under The Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods, Rod N. Andreason

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Contract And The Securities Laws: Opting Out Of Securities Regulation By Private Agreement, Elaine A. Welle

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Microfinance And The Mechanics Of Solidarity Lending: Improving Access To Credit Throught Innovations In Contract Structure, Jameel Jaffer

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

“A Delicate Interplay”: Resolving The Contract/Corporate Law Tension In Mergers, Celia R. Taylor

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Mergers are rampant in the corporate world and are the subject of extensive analysis by courts and commentators. Current analysis of the merger process focuses on the role of corporate law rather than the role of contract law. By overlooking contract law, the prevalent analysis fails to reach a correct resolution of the inherent tension between contractual obligations arising from merger agreements and corporate fiduciary duties governing directors' behavior during the merger process. This Article proposes a superior resolution that properly recognizes and values contractual obligations while upholding corporate fiduciary obligations.

Caught Between Scylla And Charybdis: Law & Economics As A Useful Tool For Feminist Legal Theorists , Darren Bush

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.