Contracts Commons^™

Alexa, Who Owns My Pillow Talk? Contracting, Collaterizing, And Monetizing Consumer Privacy Through Voice-Captured Personal Data, Anne Logsdon Smith

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

With over one-fourth of households in the U.S. alone now using voice-activated digital assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo (better known as “Alexa”) and Google’s Home, companies are recording and transmitting record volumes of voice data from the privacy of people’s homes to servers across the globe. These devices capture conversations about everything from online shopping to food preferences to entertainment recommendations to bedtime stories, and even phone and appliance use. With “Big Data” and business analytics expected to be a $203 billion-plus industry by 2020, companies are racing to acquire and leverage consumer data by selling it, licensing it, …

Beyond Corporate Contract: A Response To Helen Hershkoff & Marcel Kahan, Forum-Selection Provisions In Corporate 'Contracts', Verity Winship

Washington Law Review Online

This piece is a response to Helen Hershkoff & Marcel Kahan, Forum-Selection Provisions in Corporate “Contracts”, 93 Wash. L. Rev. 265 (2018).

2017 Survey Of Rhode Island Law: Cases And Public Laws Of Note

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adminization: Gatekeeping Consumer Contracts, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

Large companies and debt collectors frequently file unmeritorious claims against consumers. Recent high-profile actions brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and other large debt collectors illustrate the breadth and importance of this phenomenon. Due to the limited financial power of individuals, consumers often do not defend against such baseless claims, which results in the entry of millions of default judgments every year. To combat this problem, policymakers and scholars have explored a variety of court-based solutions that would make it easier for consumers to defend in court, but these prove ineffectual.

To solve the problem …

Vindicating The Effective Vindication Exception: Protecting Federal Statutory Rights In The Employment Context, Colby J. Byrd

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Uncertainty Of Sun Printing, George M. Cohen

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Agency Coordination Of Private Action: The Role Of Relational Contracting, Karen Maire Bradshaw Schulz

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article explores the previously overlooked role of relational contracting in forming and maintaining public-private partnerships. Relational contracting generally describes firms using formal but legally non-binding agreements to collaborate on shared objectives. Why do parties invest in forming elaborate contracts that they do not—and cannot—enforce in court? Contract theory suggests that the very act of contracting is relationship-building; it generates commitment, trust, cooperation, a win-win philosophy, and strengthened communication. Writing down goals and intentions allows parties to clarify expectations while maintaining flexibility for unforeseen conditions. This Article demonstrates that agencies also use relational contracting— creating unenforceable written agreements to build …

How Well Do We Treat Each Other In Contract?, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

One of the important contributions of Nathan Oman’s new book is to draw focus onto the quality of the relationships enabled by contract. He claims that contract, by supporting markets, cultivates certain virtues; helps facilitate cooperation among people with diverse commitments; and produces the wealth that may fuel interpersonal and social justice. These claims are all plausible, though subject to individual challenge. However, there is an alternative story to tell about the kinds of relationships that arise from markets i.e., a story about domination. The experience of domination is driven in part by the necessity, inequality, and competition enjoined by …

Everywhere A Cluck-Cluck: Frigaliment Importing Co. V. B.N.S. Int'l Sales Corp., Michael P. Malloy

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Contract And The Problem Of Fickle People, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Resolving Self-Driving Car Patent Conflicts: Arbitration In Waymo V. Uber And Future Autonomous Vehicle Patent Disputes, Ilya Gorelik

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Waymo and Uber should have entered into a mutually agreed upon arbitration agreement to resolve their patent claims, and future conflicting self-driving car developers should consider doing the same. Uber was already willing to enter arbitration, and while Waymo resisted being forced into arbitration in the past, it would have the opportunity to influence the terms of the arrangement. Arbitration would benefit both Waymo and future patent holders, as well as Uber and future parties accused of patent infringement, as it would provide a cheaper alternative to litigating those claims while also keeping the procedure more confidential, providing Waymo a …

Ride Oversharing: Privacy Regulation Within The Gig Economy, Casey Thomas

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology, J. Brad Bernthal

Publications

There has been an explosion in new types of startup finance instruments. Whereas twenty years ago preferred stock dominated the field, startup companies and investors now use at least eight different instruments—six of which have only become widely used in the last decade. Legal scholars have yet to reflect upon the proliferation of instrument types in the aggregate. Notably missing is a way to organize instruments into a common framework that highlights their similarities and differences.

This Article makes four contributions. First, it catalogues the variety of startup investment forms. I describe novel instruments, such as revenue-based financing, which remain …

Signed, Sealed, Delivered--Not Yours: Why The Fair Labor Standards Act Offers A Framework For Regulating Gestational Surrogacy, Zoe M. Beiner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Over the past several decades, gestational surrogacy has emerged as a rapidly growing industry. Such growth has prompted an enormous amount of debate among scholars, human rights advocates, economists, and the media over a wide array of legal and ethical issues. This debate is perhaps most evident in the divergence of state approaches to the regulation of gestational surrogacy-for example, some states ban the practice entirely, others allow only altruistic arrangements, and many states simply do not address surrogacy at all. The fractured landscape of surrogacy regulation has resulted in artificially high costs and, often, uncertainty for all parties involved. …

Control Of The Attorney-Client Privilege After Mergers And Other Transformational Transactions: Should Control Of The Privilege Be Alienable By Contract?, Grace M. Giesel

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In recent years, parties to mergers and other transformational transactions have begun inserting into their deal documents provisions allocating post-transaction control of the attorney-client privilege for pretransaction communications. The controller of the privilege is the person or entity who decides whether to assert the privilege or, rather, to waive it. Commonly, representatives of the target entity in a merger or representatives of an asset seller in a transformational sale want post-transaction control of the privilege for pre-transaction communications relating to the transaction. They want control of the privilege so the surviving entity cannot access or use those communications against the …

Mangled Metaphors: Procd, Inc. V. Zeidenberg, Michael P. Malloy

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Is The License Still The Product?, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

The Supreme Court rejected the use of patent law to enforce conditional sales contracts in Impression Products v. Lexmark. The case appears to be just another step in the Supreme Court’s ongoing campaign to reset the Federal Circuit’s patent law jurisprudence. However, the decision casts a shadow on cases from all federal circuits that have enforced software licenses for more than 20 years and potentially imperils the business models on which software developers rely to create innovative products and to bring those products to market in a variety of useful ways.

For over two decades, we could say that …

Autonomy For Contract, Refined, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

In The Choice Theory of Contracts, we advance a claim about the centrality of autonomy to contract. This Issue offers thoughtful and penetrating critiques. Here, we reply. Autonomy is the grounding principle of contract. In Choice Theory, we stressed the (1) proactive facilitation component of autonomy, in particular, the state’s obligation regarding contract types. Here, we highlight two additional, necessary implications of autonomy for contract: (2) regard for future selves and (3) relational justice. These three aspects of autonomy shape the range, limit, and floor, respectively, for the legitimate use of contract. They provide a principled and constrained path for …

The Macpherson-Henningsen Puzzle, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the landmark case of MacPherson v. Buick, an automobile company was held liable for negligence notwithstanding a lack of privity with the injured driver. Four decades later, in Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, the court held unconscionable the standard automobile company warranty which limited its responsibility to repair and replacement, even in a case involving physical injury. This suggests a puzzle: if it were so easy for firms to contract out of liability, did MacPherson accomplish anything?

Boilerplate’S False Dichotomy, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The argument against enforcing boilerplate contracts (contracts that no one reads) seems clear. Indeed, if this were a court case we would say that the jury is in; the evidence against boilerplate is overwhelming. Yet the judge has yet to render judgment. Courts continue to enforce boilerplate terms, and even those scholars who have exposed boilerplate as an emperor with no clothes are reluctant to gaze upon its nakedness and condemn its use.

This reluctance originates in an assumption that pervades the boilerplate debate—namely, that courts and commentators alike view boilerplate as necessary to the modern transaction. When asked to …