Exploring Contract Law
Edited by
Jason W Neyers Richard Bronaugh and Stephen G A Pitel
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EXPLORING CONTRACT LAW In this book, leading scholars from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States deal with important theoretical and practical issues in the law of contract and closely-related areas of private law. The chapters analyse developments in the law of estoppel, mistake, undue influence, the interpretation of contracts, assignment, exclusion clauses and damages. The chapters also address more theoretical issues such as discerning the limits of contract law, the role of principle in the development of contract doctrine and the morality of promising. With its rich scope of contributors and topics, Exploring Contract Law will be highly useful to lawyers, judges and academics across the common law world.
Foreword The chapters in this volume are the product of a symposium titled ‘Exploring Contract Law’ held at the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law in January 2008. The sessions featured good intellectual punch-ups between those participants who see law as an adjectival study focused on the work of the courts and commerce, and others who dedicate their careers to more philosophical musings about legal concepts. Both approaches are helpful. Problem solving without a sound philosophical basis risks palm tree justice. Theory without a nod to practice risks irrelevance. Those in the first group would likely agree with Karl