Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
In Deconstructing Employment Contract Law, Professors Rachel Arnow-Richman and JH Verkerke present a rigorously logical and perfectly compelling case that the application of unilateral contract theory to employment agreements ‘makes no sense’ and is ‘an antiquated, ill-fitting, incoherent mess’. Unlike a reward, which is the paradigmatic (and perhaps only real example of) a unilateral contract, Professors Arnow-Richman and Verkerke are absolutely accurate when they describe employment contracts as bilateral and ‘hyper-relational’. By hyper-relational, they mean that employment is ‘a fluid, indefinite, and long-term relationship’, not a one-shot, ‘discrete’ transaction. As a case for doctrinal coherence, and a shift of employment contracts from antiquity to modern understanding and practice, the article is a praiseworthy achievement. There are two premises upon which Deconstructing Employment Contract Law proceed that are unassailable

Meredith R Miller, (In)Coherence in Employment Contract Law: Response to Professors Arnow-Richman and JH Verkerke, 75 Florida Law Review Forum 83 (2024).