Exploitative Contracts

Judges and scholars routinely use concepts such as 'exploitation' in a justificatory way. In the field of contract law, a finding of exploitation may excuse a party from the normal consequences of his or her manifested contractual assent. However, the meaning of exploitation is usually assumed for this purpose, rather than elaborated. In fact, exploitation is a highly contested concept. "Exploitative Contracts" examines the 'essentially contestable' criteria of interpersonal exploitation claims. It puts forward a conception of exploitation: 'legal contractual exploitation', a form of wrongdoing that arises in connection with the formation of contracts. This notion is shown to underpin traditional heads of relief in contract law, including unconscionable dealing, undue influence, unilateral mistake in equity, and 'lawful act' duress. Importantly, this notion of legal contractual exploitation conforms to the intellectual and institutional forms of order presupposed by the classic liberal conception of the contract. The wrongfulness of an act of exploitation must reside in some characteristic of the processes of contract formation rather than in some quality of the impugned contract itself. The doctrines of unconscionable dealing, duress, and undue influence are examined in detail in the light of what they each reveal about the 'process' conception of legal contractual exploitation. In turn, this volume explains how an understanding of these contract law doctrines can be enhanced by a proper conception of exploitation.

ISBN 0198260636   Pages 584 ISBN13 9780198260639 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Oxford University Press   Weight (grammes) 1010 Imprint Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 11 Dec 2003   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress K840   Spine width (mm) 36 DEWEY 346.02   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

		Table of Cases
1		Prospectus		1
2		Operational Bargaining Norms: Contracting Beyond Utopia		25
3		Contract and Justice: From Involuntariness to Exploitation		59
4		Legal Contractual Exploitation		125
5		Toward a Purely Processual Conception of Legal Contractual Exploitation		171
6		Exploitation of Special Advantage: Unconscionable Dealing		227
7		Contracting Under Duress		279
8		Exploitation of Deferential Trust: Relational Undue Influence		373
9		Beyond Legal Contractual Exploitation: Toward a Common Law Precept of Transactional Care		485
		References		523
		Index		551

...the reader will benefit from Bigwood's guide to what is now a very large body of doctrine...this book refuses to be swamped by the amount of material it discusses. Cambridge Law Journal

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