Private Legislation and the Duty To Read--Business Run by IBM Machine, the Law of Contracts and Credit Cards

It will not do for a man to enter into a contract, and, when called upon to abide by its conditions, say that he did not read it when he signed it, or did not know what it contained. \u27 This rallying cry often is sounded in contracts and restitution opinions. Sometimes it makes such good sense that it is axiomatic. Yet in common with all grand slogans, there are situations where it just doesn\u27t fit... More difficult are the cases where the words are there in a form more easily read and understood but where the probabilities are very great that only the most suspicious will discover and translate them correctly. This is often true of printed form contracts and procedures for using them which are produced by large corporations to govern what to them are routine transactions. As we know, often these organizations attempt to use contract ideology to legislate privately; sometimes successfully, sometimes not. How then should we decide that one does or does not have a duty to read and understand? This comment will consider the duty to read --and understand--and attempt to highlight many of the important policy considerations that hide behind this slogan. I will look at some of the common situations where the idea is found, at the wide variety of possible goals that the legal system might pursue in these situations, and at some of the consequences of the choices that are made. Finally, I will consider a specific case--the responsibility for misuse of lost or stolen credit cards in light of the typical lack of warning given by issuers of these cards-as an example of the analysis suggested

Macaulay's Life of Johnson

173 p

Toward the Next Generation of Galanter-Influenced Scholars: The Influential Reach of a Law-and-Society Founder

To say that Professor Marc Galanter\u27s scholarship is diverse would be a woeful understatement. In his over forty years of writing, Galanter\u27s work has covered topics including (but not limited to) torts, contracts, constitutional law, comparative law, empirical legal studies, the legal profession, legal anthropology, and South Asian studies. With Galanter\u27s scholarship so heavily cited and respected, we see it as only fitting, particularly upon his recently turning seventy-five, to acknowledge his achievements in a symposium that reflects back on the years of his work. Serving as special editors to an issue forthcoming in the Duke Law School journal, Law and Contemporary Problems, we offer here a short essay that briefly summarizes the various works of the contributors participating in this dedication. Our authors provide a set of papers that cover a range of disciplines: law, sociology, political science, anthropology, history, and philosophy. The works embody Galanter\u27s long-held belief that not only should law be studied in an interdisciplinary manner but that it can be instrumentally used by both elites and grassroots activists to effectuate social change. The symposium-contributors also share another connection. Each views her or himself to be a student of Galanter\u27s. Some of these students have been directly mentored by Galanter while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and have since gone on to academic posts at other institutions. Others are more distance-students who have been influenced either while studying elsewhere or while working as academics at different universities. The common link though is that this cohort is part of the next generation of Galanter-influenced scholars who will be carrying-on the lessons of Galanter\u27s vast scholarship for decades to come

Toward the Next Generation of Galanter-Influenced Scholars: The Influential Reach of a Law-and-Society Founder

To say that Professor Marc Galanter\u27s scholarship is diverse would be a woeful understatement. In his over forty years of writing, Galanter\u27s work has covered topics including (but not limited to) torts, contracts, constitutional law, comparative law, empirical legal studies, the legal profession, legal anthropology, and South Asian studies. With Galanter\u27s scholarship so heavily cited and respected, we see it as only fitting, particularly upon his recently turning seventy-five, to acknowledge his achievements in a symposium that reflects back on the years of his work. Serving as special editors to an issue forthcoming in the Duke Law School journal, Law and Contemporary Problems, we offer here a short essay that briefly summarizes the various works of the contributors participating in this dedication. Our authors provide a set of papers that cover a range of disciplines: law, sociology, political science, anthropology, history, and philosophy. The works embody Galanter\u27s long-held belief that not only should law be studied in an interdisciplinary manner but that it can be instrumentally used by both elites and grassroots activists to effectuate social change. The symposium-contributors also share another connection. Each views her or himself to be a student of Galanter\u27s. Some of these students have been directly mentored by Galanter while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and have since gone on to academic posts at other institutions. Others are more distance-students who have been influenced either while studying elsewhere or while working as academics at different universities. The common link though is that this cohort is part of the next generation of Galanter-influenced scholars who will be carrying-on the lessons of Galanter\u27s vast scholarship for decades to come

Transactional Economics: Victor Goldberg\u27s \u3ci\u3eFraming Contract Law\u3c/i\u3e

Professor Mark Gergen: Thank you. It is an honor to speak to this group and to be on a panel with Stewart Macaulay, Keith Rowley, and Victor Goldberg. I have an enormous amount of respect for the three. Keith had the misfortune of being a student of mine in Federal Income Tax. Framing Contract Law offers a wealth of information about familiar cases. Victor argues that in construing contracts, courts should be attentive to how people engineer contracts to minimize transaction costs. He shows that courts often err in this regard, imposing unnecessary costs. To make his case, Victor delves deeply into the background of cases, many that will be familiar to anyone who has taught contracts, and turns up much that is new and interesting. I am going to follow Victor\u27s lead by focusing on two cases that he discusses. I will briefly summarize what he says about the cases. I will then use the cases as a springboard to make my points, which are different from Victor\u27s points