Abstract
This book has surveyed, analyzed, and critiqued various modern theories of contract law. My goal in each chapter was to compare the principal insights and perspectives of two largely contrasting theories in order to find possible areas of agreement and to construct a consensus or pluralist thesis. Ultimately, I argue that this synthesizing thesis constitutes the most persuasive account of contract law’s nature and functions.
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Reference
“Is there perhaps, between individual sovereignty of the contract and collective sovereignty of the law, a difference only in degree and in application, and should we finally cease opposing them to each other as if one was destined to triumph over the other?” Georges Davy, La Foi Juree--Etude Sociologique Du Probleme Du Contrat 374 (1922), quoted in Lyman Johnson, Individual and Collective Sovereignty in the Corporate Enterprise, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 2215, 2249 (1992) (reviewing Frank H. Easterbrook & Daniel R. Flschel, The Economic Structure of Corporate Law (1991) and Robert N. Bellah, et. al., The Good Society (1991)).
For a discussion of the pitfalls of conventional views in another context, see Daniel A. Farber & Suzanna Sherry, Telling Stories Out of School: An Essay on Legal Narratives, 45 Stan. L. Rev. 807, 854–55 (1993).
Robert C. Clark, Contracts, Elites and Traditions in the Making of Corporate Law, 89 Colum. L. Rev. 1703, 1726 (1989).
Milton Y. Dawes, Multiordinality: A Point of View, et Cetera, Summer 1986, at 128, 131.
See Chapter 5.
631 F. 2d 1264 (6th. Cir. 1980).
631 F. 2d 1264 (6th. Cir. 1980). at 1278-79.
Forty-seven percent of the former steelworkers in Youngstown were unemployed in 1987. Sharon Cohen, Steel Town is Struggling Back from Depression, Ithaca Journal, August 22, 1987 at 11A, col. 2. For a description of the devastation of Youngstown brought about by the closing of the steel mills, see id.
Jay M. Feinman, Critical Approaches to Contract Law, 30 UCLA L. REV. 829, 857 (1983)
The court held that the company should not have reasonably expected the steelworkers to rely on the alternative definition.
Joseph W. Singer, The Reliance Interest in Property, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 611, 699 (1988).
See, e.g., David F. Cavers, Legal Education and Lawyer Made Law, 54 W. Va. L. Rev. 177,180 (1952)
Ian R. Macneil, A Primer of Contract Planning, 48 S. Cal. L. Rev. 627, and especially 650, 691, 693 (1975)
David W. Maxey, Fundamentals of Draftmanship -- A Guide for the Apprentice in Preparing Agreements, 51 Pa. B. Ass’n. Q.47(1980).
See, e.g., David Crump, The Five Elements of a Contract: Avoiding Ambiguity in Them, 43 Tex. B. J. 370 (1980)
Joseph C. Benage, Planning Opportunities With Contracts to Make a Will, 39 J. of Mo. B. 395 (1983).
Most analysts choose to study judicial opinions instead of collecting data about the operation of contract in the real world. See, e.g., Robert W. Gordon, Macaulay, Macneil, and the Discovery of Solidarity and Power in Contract Law, 1985 Wis. L. Rev. 565, 568 (moral and economic theorists rely on appellate cases and ignore empirical data). Case law reveals little of the importance of contract law outside of litigation. See Cavers, supra note 12, at 179.
See Roberto M. Unger, The Critical Legal Studies Movement 58, 83 (1983).
See Roberto M. Unger, The Critical Legal Studies Movement 58, 83 (1983). at 58
Melvin A. Eisenberg, The Principles of Consideration, 67 Cornell L. Rev. 640, 642–43 (1982). A “general theory of contract must almost certainly come ultimately to assert a less absolute dominion over the ‘entire field’ than has been the case in this heyday of its hope.”
Karl N. Llewellyn, What Price Contract? --An Essay in Perspective, 40 Yale L.J. 704, 749 (1931).
Llewellyn, supra note 16, at 749–50.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hillman, R.A. (1997). Modern Contract Law and the Limits of Contract Theory. In: The Richness of Contract Law. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5680-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5680-6_9
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