Contracts Commons^™

Contracting (Incompletely) For Success: Designing Pay For Success Contracts For Social Impact Bonds (Sibs), Deborah Burand

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

More than two dozen social impact bonds have been launched in the United States since the first was contracted by New York City in 2012. Dozens more of these transactions are in progress across the United States, and more are likely to come prompted, at least in part, by the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) of 2018.

As the number of social impact bonds has grown, the architecture of the pay for success contracts that undergird social impact bonds is starting to take recognizable form in the United States. What explains the design of these pay …

No Forum To Rule Them All: Comity And Conflict In Transnational Frand Disputes, Eli Greenbaum

Washington Law Review

Recent years have seen an explosion in FRAND litigation, in which parties commit to license intellectual property under “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) terms, but they cannot agree on the meaning of that commitment. Much of this litigation is multinational and involves coordinating patent, antitrust, and contract claims across several jurisdictions. A number of courts and commentators have aimed to centralize and thereby streamline these disputes, whether by consolidating all litigation in one judicial forum or through the creation of a comprehensive arbitral process. This Article argues that such efforts are misguided—FRAND disputes are particularly unamenable to centralization, and the …

Contract Interpretation With Corpus Linguistics, Stephen C. Mouritsen

Washington Law Review

Courts and scholars disagree about the quantum of evidence that is necessary to determine the meaning of contractual provisions. Formalists favor excluding extrinsic evidence unless the contractual text is found to be ambiguous. Contextualists, by contrast, look to extrinsic evidence to support claims about contractual meaning even absent a finding of ambiguity. The formalist approach is faulted for failing to provide a meaningful account of the parties’ intentions and for placing heavy reliance upon the judge’s own linguistic intuitions and general-use English dictionaries—both problematic guides to plain meaning. At the same time, the contextualist approach may impose significant costs on …

Protecting Consumers As Sellers, Jim Hawkins

Indiana Law Journal

When the majority of modern contract and consumer protection laws were written in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, consumers almost always acted as buyers, and businesses almost always acted as sellers. As a result, these laws reflect a model of strong sellers and weak buyers. But paradigms are shifting. Advances in technology and constraints on consumers’ financial lives have pushed consumers into new roles. Consumers today often act as sellers—hawking gold to make ends meet, peddling durable goods on eBay, or offering services in the sharing economy to make a profit. Consumers and business models have changed, but the laws …

Arbitration And The Federal Balance, Alyssa King

Indiana Law Journal

Mandatory arbitration of statutory rights in contracts between parties of unequal bargaining power has drawn political attention at both the federal and state level. The importance of such reforms has only been heightened by the Supreme Court’s expansion of preemption under the FAA and of arbitral authority. This case law creates incentives for courts at all levels to prefer expansive readings of an arbitration clause. As attempts at federal regulation have stalled, state legislatures and regulatory agencies can expect to be subject to renewed focus. If state legislatures cannot easily limit arbitrability, an alternative is to try reforms that seek …

Boilerplate Indignity, Erik Encarnacion

Indiana Law Journal

Commentators have long tried to sound the alarm about boilerplate contracts, pointing out threats ranging from the loss of privacy rights to the erosion of public law and democratic self-governance. This Article argues that this list of concerns misses something important: that imposing certain boilerplate terms on individuals is incompatible with their dignity. After explaining and defending the conception of dignity presupposed here, this Article shows how boilerplate accountability waivers—like arbitration clauses—prevent people from accessing the distinctive dignity-vindicating role of courts and degrade their status as legal persons. And because governments may legitimately protect dignity interests, proposed reforms like the …

Bitcoin: Order Without Law In The Digital Age, John O. Mcginnis, Kyle Roche

Indiana Law Journal

Modern law makes currency a creature of the state and ultimately the value of its currency depends on the public’s trust in that state. While some nations are more capable than others at instilling public trust in the stability of their monetary institutions, it is nonetheless impossible for any legal system to make the pre-commitments necessary to completely isolate the governance of its money supply from political pressure. This proposition is true not only today, where nearly all government institutions manage their money supply in the form of central banking, but also true of past private banking regimes circulating their …

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Jennifer S. Martin, Colin P. Marks, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

The survey that follows highlights the most important developments of 2018 dealing with domestic and international sales of goods, personal property leases, payments, letters of credit, documents of title, investment securities, and secured transactions.

Contracting For Healthcare: Price Terms In Hospital Admission Agreements, George A. Nation Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article discusses the application of contract law principles to the relationship between hospitals and patients to determine how much patients owe for the health care they receive. For patients who are covered by in-network health insurance the exact nature of the contract created with the hospital usually is not relevant to the patient’s financial obligation because the patient’s contract with the hospital is superseded by the contract between the patient’s health insurer and the hospital. Nevertheless, even in-network patients are financially impacted, via increased insurance premiums, by the contract analysis discussed here, and for the increasing number of patients …

The Internet Of Bodies, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article introduces the ongoing progression of the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Bodies (IoB)—a network of human bodies whose integrity and functionality rely at least in part on the Internet and related technologies, such as artificial intelligence. IoB devices will evidence the same categories of legacy security flaws that have plagued IoT devices. However, unlike most IoT, IoB technologies will directly, physically harm human bodies—a set of harms courts, legislators, and regulators will deem worthy of legal redress. As such, IoB will herald the arrival of (some forms of) corporate software liability and a new legal …

Third-Party Bankruptcy Releases: An Analysis Of Consent Through The Lenses Of Due Process And Contract Law, Dorothy Coco

Fordham Law Review

Bankruptcy courts disagree on the use of third-party releases in Chapter 11 bankruptcy plans, the different factors that circuit courts consider when deciding whether to approve a third-party release, and the impact of the various consent definitions on whether a release is or should be binding on the creditor. Affirmative consent, “deemed consent,” and silence are important elements in this discussion. Both contract law and due process provide lenses to evaluate consent definitions to determine whether nondebtor third-party releases should bind certain creditor groups. This Note proposes a solution that follows an affirmative consent approach to protect against due process …

Mere Conduit, David G. Carlson

Articles

"Mere conduit" is a legal fiction in fraudulent transfer and other avoidance cases. This article argues that the legal fiction is misleading, unnecessary and rendered obsolete by the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Merit Management Group v. FTI Consulting, Inc. (2018). The article further contends that a huge majority of leading cases confound fraudulent transfer law with the law of corporate theft. This error leads to depriving financial intermediaries of their opportunity to avoid liability on the ground of being bona fide transferees for value. Finally, courts often mistake banks as initial transferees of fraudulent transfers (absolutely liable in spite …

Second Looks & Second Chances, Shon Hopwood

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Boesiger V. Desert Appraisals, Llc, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 25 (July 3, 2019), Jeff Garrett

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court held that Appellants provided insufficient evidence to show that Respondents had a duty to Appellant or breached their duty to Appellant. The Appellants failed to provide the required expert testimony necessary for a case concerning the professional conduct of a profession whose standards and procedures are not known to the public. Additionally, because the contract between the Appellants and the Respondents did not expressly name the Appellants as third-party beneficiaries, the Appellants do not have standing to request the contract be enforced.

Rose, Llc., V. Treasure Island, Llc., 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 19 (Jun. 6, 2019), Ben Coonan

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court found that (1) strict compliance with contract notice requirements is unnecessary if the defaulting party receives actual notice and no prejudice resulted from failure to comply strictly with the contract terms; and (2) a party is not necessary under NRCP 19 unless the other parties to the litigation cannot obtain complete relief in that party’s absence.

Smart Contracts And Consumers, Tatiana Cutts

West Virginia Law Review

“Smart contracts” are a way of using computers to make contracts unbreakable. Contracting parties do not need to trust one another to perform or rely upon intermediaries to enforce performance. Performance is guaranteed. This is supposed to be a victory for the ordinary person—a clever socio-economic application of cryptography that strips power from companies and governments and gives it to consumers. But it turns out that less trust does not mean more freedom, or better bargains. The law of contract supports valuable relationships both by enforcing duties and by allowing parties to escape the consequences of ill-formed contracts and oppressive …

Mmawc, Llc V. Zion Wood Obi Wan Trust, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 38 (Sep. 5, 2019), John Mccormick-Huhn

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) preempted NRS § 597.995, which required any agreement containing an arbitration provision to also provide affirmative authorization to the arbitration by the agreement’s parties.

Pardee Homes Of Nevada V. Wolfram, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 22 (July 3, 2019), Michael Desmond

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) any party seeking attorney fees as special damages must comply with NRCP 9(g), (2) the prevailing party in a two-party breach of contract suit is not entitled to attorney fees as special damages, and (3) any party seeking attorney fees pursuant to express contractual provisions is so entitled upon prevailing in the suit.

A New Role Of Causation Theory Towards Achieving Economic Contractual Equilibrium: Monitoring The Economic Equilibrium Of The Contract, Osama Ismail Amayreh, Izura Masdina Mohamed Zakri, Pardis Moslemzadeh Tehrani, Yousef Mohammad Shandi

Indonesia Law Review

The phrase “who says contractual, says justice” “qui dit contractuel dit juste” does not fully express the truth of our present reality, where the phrase itself falls into doubt, since the contract does not always result in fair obligations, as the contract is an expression of often unequal wills. In this regard, the French judiciary realized that the absence of justice in the contract might arise as a result of the contractual freedom afforded to the contracting parties and, thus, they developed the idea of Commutative Justice in the contract, such as the Piller’s decision, which is considered one of …