Private Law Theory

MARGARET JANE RADIN, BOILERPLATE: THE FINE PRINT, VANISHING RIGHTS, AND THE RULE OF LAW (2012). Pp 360. Hardcover $35.00.

Introduction:
In Margaret Jane Radin’s provocative new book, Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law, the author offers scathing observations regarding the motivation and effects of the terms placed in consumer and employee form contracts and on‐line agreements. She argues that the current contracting practices make a mockery of consent, and undermine the rule of law. Boilerplate’s essential claim is that for many contracting parties, freedom of contract is less an ideal than a sham. The book properly criticizes theories of contract law (and courses in contract law) that largely ignore boilerplate and its problems despite the pervasiveness of such terms in modern contracting practice … (more)

Brian H Bix, Boilerplate, Freedom of Contract, and Democratic Degradation, 49 Tulsa Law Review 501 (2013).

First posted 2014-05-22 06:39:27