If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably don’t need any further warnings about confusion caused by commas. Well, you’re getting one anyway. A reader told me about this post on the blog of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It’s about last fall’s Ninth Circuit opinion in Hamdan. It involves the language of a statute, not a contract, but … Read More
While trawling through caselaw, I encountered Gingras v. Avery, 90 Conn. App. 585, 591, 878 A.2d 404, 408 (2005). It involved a fight over the following: The closing shall take place on or before sixty (60) days after subdivision approval; but in no event later than March 15, 2003. The developers of the property in question didn’t obtain subdivision approval but … Read More
My recent article debunking the recital of consideration (here) explains the terms “nominal consideration” and “sham consideration” (footnotes omitted): Such a recital of consideration might seek to express what the parties have actually bargained for. If instead what is being offered wasn’t bargained for as part of an exchange, it’s a pretense. In that case, the recital is said to provide for “nominal” consideration, … Read More
Longtime readers will remember Andrew Godwin, Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of Transactional Law at Melbourne Law School, as I did this Q&A with him in 2012. And since then, he’s been my gracious host on my seminar trips to Australia. Given that my March “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong (information here) are fast … Read More
In MSCD 3.248, I recommend that you not use in a contract the terms of art condition precedent and condition subsequent: In a contract, use the term condition rather than condition precedent, which conveys the same meaning but adds an unnecessarily legalistic flavor. You should never need to use condition subsequent, meaning something that, if it occurs, would bring something else to an … Read More
The week of 29 February I’ll be in the Bay Area for meetings and an in-house seminar. If you’d like to take advantage of my being in the area, contact me.
Last night I did the following retweet of a live tweet from a conference: My intent isn’t to embarrass anyone—hence my amateurish redacting of the name of the law firm that offered this advice. Instead, it gives me an opportunity to make the following points: There’s beaucoup misinformation out there. Indeed, what’s in the tweet is what passes for conventional wisdom … Read More
I’m doing “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminars in Beijing on 8 March, in Shanghai on 10 March, and in Hong Kong on 11 March. Seminar organizers in Asia tend to be coy about handing out information, as competition is fierce, but we now have a brochure, here. For all relevant information, go here.
Today, my mole buried deep in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California—oh all right, it was @VBalasubramani—told me about Total Recall Techs. v. Luckey, No. C 15-02281 WHA, 2016 WL 199796 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 16, 2016) (PDF here). It involves a dispute between plaintiff Total Recall Technologies (a general partnership of Thomas Seidl and Ron Igra) and defendant Palmer … Read More
I’ve written occasionally about principles of interpretation (also referred to as “canons of construction”) used by courts. In this post I say that “they’re principles for arbitrarily reverse-engineering meaning where meaning is otherwise not apparent.” I said pretty much the same thing in this recent tweet: People use the phrase "canon of construction" because it sounds grander than "convenient fiction". … Read More
