Contract As Assumption

It has many times been said that contracts involve assumptions of obligation or liability, but what that means, and what it is that is assumed, have not often been discussed. It is to further such discussion that some of the author's previously published writings around this subject have been brought together in this book. His basic premises are that contractual obligation and liability in this context are two sides to the same coin and that an assumption of one is an assumption of both. Parties are bound not because liability has been imposed upon them by law as a result of their having entere.

This second collection of Brian Coote's previously published writings is for the most part a follow-up to his Contract as Assumption (Hart Publishing, 2010). Part of the theme of that collection was that in a bilateral contract the obligations of the parties, both primary and secondary, are those which at formation they have each assumed, that is, have taken upon themselves. Being exchanged at the point of formation, these assumptions constitute the consideration. The institution of contract provides a facility the purpose of which is to enable the parties thereby to bind themselves to legal (contractual) obligation. This emphasis on what happens at formation has prompted the inclusion of several of the papers in this collection. These focus on intention, offer and acceptance, the qualification of primary and secondary obligations whether express or implied, agency, and the effect of illegality on pre-existing rights. Falling outside this group are two pieces respectively on chance and the burden of proof and on impecuniosity, in each case in tort as well as in contract. The collection ends with the author's valedictory lecture, 'Contract: An Underview'. In this paper, delivered on his retirement from the University of Auckland, he summed up his thinking on Contract. It is now for the first time given general currency.

It has many times been said that contracts involve assumptions of obligation or liability, but what that means, and what it is that is assumed, have not often been discussed. It is to further such discussion that some of the author's previously published writings around this subject have been brought together in this book. His basic premises are that contractual obligation and liability in this context are two sides to the same coin and that an assumption of one is an assumption of both. Parties are bound not because liability has been imposed upon them by law as a result of their having entered into a contract but because, in the act of assuming, they have imposed it upon themselves. Contract provides a facility the purpose of which is to enable this to be done within the limits prescribed by law. The implication of these premises are much more significant than might be supposed when applied to such areas of contract as formation, consideration, intention to contract, exception clauses, privity and damages. The book concludes with a treatment of the role of assumption in tort. Because of the importance of its subject matter and its wide-ranging treatment, this book should appeal not only to teachers and postgraduate students of contract but also to practitioners in the field and to anyone else with an interest in contract theory.

Part I. The Role of Consent: 1. Transatlantic perspectives: fundamental themes and debates Larry A. DiMatteo, Qi Zhou and Séverine Saintier 2. Competing theories of contract: an emerging consensus? Martin A. Hogg 3. Contracts, courts and the construction of consent Tom W. Joo 4. Are mortgage contracts promises? Curtis Bridgeman Part II. Normative Views of Contract: 5. Naturalistic contract Peter A. Alces 6. Contract in a networked world Roger Brownsword 7. Contract, transactions, and equity T.T. Arvind Part III. Contract Design and Good Faith: 8. Reasonability in contract design Nancy S. Kim 9. Managing change in uncertain times: relational view of good faith Zoe Ollerenshaw Part IV. Implied Terms and Interpretation: 10. Implied terms in English contract law Richard Austen-Baker 11. Contract interpretation: judicial rule, not party choice Juliet Kostritsky Part V. Policing Contracting Behavior: 12. The paradox of the French method of calculating the compensation of commercial agents and the importance of conceptualising the remedial scheme under Directive 86/653 Séverine Saintier 13. Unconscionability in American contract law Chuck Knapp 14. Unfair terms in comparative perspective: software contracts Jean Braucher 15. (D)CFR initiative and consumer unfair terms Mel Kenny Part VI. Misrepresentation, Breach and Remedies: 16. Remedies for misrepresentation: an integrated system David Capper 17. Re-examining damages for fraudulent misrepresentation James Devenney 18. Remedies for documentary breaches: English law and the CISG Djakhongir Saidov Part VII. Harmonizing Contract Law: 19. Harmonisation European contract law: default and mandatory rules Qi Zhou 20. Harmonization and its discontents: a critique of the transaction cost argument for a European contract law David Campbell and Roger Halson 21. Europeanisation of contract law and the proposed common European sales law Hector MacQueen 22. Harmonization of international sales law Larry A. DiMatteo.

Legal thinkers typically justify contract law on the basis of economics or promissory morality. But Peter Benson takes another approach. He argues that contract is best explained as a transfer of rights governed by a conception of justice. The result is a comprehensive theory of contract law congruent with Rawlsian liberalism.

Contract law allows parties to set their own rules within constraints. It provides a set of default rules and if the parties do not like them, they can change them. Rethinking Contract Law and Contract Design explores various long-standing contract doc

Contract as Promise is a study of the philosophical foundations of contract law in which Professor Fried effectively answers some of the most common assumptions about contract law and strongly proposes a moral basis for it while defending the classical theory of contract. This book provides two purposes regarding the complex legal institution of the contract. The first is the theoretical purpose to demonstrate how contract law can be traced to and is determined by a small number of basic moral principles. At the theory level the author shows that contract law does have an underlying, and unifying structure. The second is a pedagogic purpose to provide for students the underlying structure of contract law. At this level of doctrinal exposition the author shows that structure can be referred to moral principles. Together the two purposes support each other in an effective and comprehensive study of contract law. This second edition retains the original text, and includes a new Preface. It also includes a substantial new essay entitled Contract as Promise in the Light of Subsequent Scholarship--Especially Law and Economics which serves as a retrospective of the work accomplished in the last thirty years, while responding to present and future work in the field.