Contracts: Cases and Materials
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Description
The course in Contracts serves at least two purposes. It is a law school’s first course in commercial law, and so provides the foundation for advanced offerings in the area, and ultimately for professional practice. It has also a more ambitious function, for teachers have long believed—rightly, we think—that contract law is exceptionally well suited to the development of a “legal mind”: respect for sources, skepticism of loose generalizations, and disciplined creativity in the use of legal materials. Judicial opinions are the major component of this casebook and are intended as the primary vehicle for instruction. But they are not the only vehicle. The book also features relevant statutes (notably parts of the Uniform Commercial Code), and formulations of the common law expressed in the Restatement of Contracts. To facilitate understanding, we have provided commentaries at various points, especially at the outset of a chapter or section. A number of principal cases are preceded by “Introductions” that provide settings for the cases in history, in law, in commerce, and the like. At appropriate points the book include perspective on some major categories of transactions, such as family agreements, real-estate transactions, and sales of good. Some topics are presented largely in text, especially those dominated by legislation or by commercial practice. Through notes and problems, students are provided with texts of their understanding, opportunities for reflection, connections among principles and cases, and sometimes with sidelights. Students are asked repeatedly how litigation might have been prevented by skillful counseling or drafting. The book contains an array of questions about competing policies, and of opinions about them. These, we believe, are essential to an understanding of the law of contracts, as of other bodies of law. We have sought to avoid pressing on readers our individual conceptions of broad social policy.
Publication Date
2008
Edition
7
Recommended Citation
Farnsworth, E. Allan; Young, William F.; Sanger, Carol; Cohen, Neil B.; and Brooks, Richard R. W., "Contracts: Cases and Materials" (2008). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 79.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/79
