Although it’s standard to refer to contract “rights,” in this November 2012 post on rethinking the “no assignment” provision, I said the following about “rights”: It’s unclear what “rights” refers to. (I don’t use the word “rights” anywhere in MSCD.) I think it refers to discretion granted to a party under an agreement and any remedy that a party has under … Read More
Consider the following: Orbitz may refuse to deliver Shares to the Employee if Employee fails to comply with Employee’s obligations in connection with the Tax Related Items. Refusal is in response to a request. Instead of may refuse, I’d always use that standard component of language of discretion, is not required to. It allows you to address the issue on a more fundamental … Read More
There seems to be no end to the bizarro verb structures that drafters opt for. Today I saw the following in a contract: “Consultant will be expected to perform the Services.” I said to myself, WTF! I promptly went on the SEC’s EDGAR system, where I had no trouble finding instances of will be expected to. It occurs in 289 … Read More
In this November 2011 post I introduced language of intention. It makes sense to use language of intention to articulate those aspects of a contract relationship that are subject to judicial scrutiny, meaning that the parties cannot establish them definitively in the contract. For the heck of it, here’s another example of language of intention, namely the basic version of … Read More
Here’s something that I suppose I should have mentioned years ago: to the list of suboptimal ways of imposing an obligation on the subject of the sentence, add promises to. For purposes of language of prohibition, the counterpart is promises not to. Use instead shall and shall not. Although promises to isn’t as conducive to confusion as agrees that, in … Read More
My friend at Melbourne Law School, Andrew Godwin, let me know about an interesting English case, Ener-g Holdings PLC v Philip Hormell (copy here). For a general overview of the case, go here for a summary by McFarlanes. Me, I just want to focus on the two main issues. This post deals with the first of them. Here’s the relevant language: … Read More
Today I received an email from longtime blog reader Elliot Miller inquiring about concedes that. I hadn’t previously encountered that usage, so of course I searched for it on the SEC’s EDGAR system. If you exclude its use in conditional clauses (If Acme concedes that …) and language of discretion (Acme may concede that …), where it plays a supporting … Read More
Here are my latest thoughts on an interesting categories-of-contract-language wrinkle discussed in MSCD 2.155–156: You can express prohibition by means of an exception to language of discretion, but doing so could be a source of confusion, depending on how you do it. Consider the following: Widgetco may sell one or more of the Vehicles except the 1965 Ford Mustang. As a … Read More
I culled the following from a security agreement on EDGAR: … SwissINSO hereby grants, assigns, conveys, mortgages, pledges, hypothecates and transfers to the Secured Party a lien on and security interest in, all of SwissINSO’s right, title and interest in, to and under, all of the property and assets currently owned by or owing to, or hereafter acquired by or … Read More
I thought it time to hoist out of the comments a discussion of obligation versus duty. Here’s what reader AWB said in this comment: By the way, any time is a good time to reconsider your preference of “obligation” (ten letters, four syllables) over “duty” (four letters, two syllables). They’re equally Latinate, but “duty” is easier to chew and has … Read More
