Contracts: A Contemporary Approach

Christina L. Kunz, Mitchell Hamline School of Law

Carol L. Chomsky, University of Minnesota Law School

Jennifer S. Martin, Albany Law School

Elizabeth R. Schiltz, University of St. Thomas-MN School of Law

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Table of Contents

June 2024 Update Memo

Teacher's Manual

Overall:

• Slims the book by 337 pp., making it 26% shorter.
• Converts many cases from full-text opinions to a shorter Example/Analysis format to highlight the “takeaways” from the cases, where the application outcome is more important than the judicial explanation of the law.
• Reorganizes the opening chapters to begin with a new chapter on promises (so students focus on what it means to make a commitment), followed by mutual assent (applying and extending what it means to make a promise), consideration, and alternatives to consideration. The 2d ed. began with consideration and alternatives to consideration, then moved to mutual assent.
• Removes discussion of CISG and UNIDROIT provisions because first year Contracts courses rarely have time to consider them.
• Removes text of UCC and Restatement provisions. This casebook now requires a statutory supplement, which can include both the text of the provisions and comments and illustrations.

Ch. 1: Introduction

• Adds and explains new kinds of text boxes (Business Lingo and Ethical Issues).

Ch. 2: Promise and Assent

• A new chapter that provides an early focus on what it means to make a promise, to give students a foundation for the next chapter’s material on offer and acceptance
• Draws on material from the previous edition (Ch. 2 on consideration, and Ch. 4 on assent) and adds two new cases

Ch. 3: Assent through Offer and Acceptance

• Provides thirty-six case-based examples illustrating how courts have applied the rules about what constitutes offer, lapse of offer, acceptance, rejection, and revocation, and how they apply UCC § 2-207
• Adds an excerpt from and a discussion of Meyer v. Uber Technologies and the problem of understanding what terms are agreed to in modern online contracting behavior.
• Adds new problems

Ch. 4: Consideration

• Discusses the two tests for consideration (benefit/detriment test, bargained-for exchange test), their roles in history, and areas of overlap
• Adds more diagrams that visualize those articulations
• Focuses the remainder of the chapter on five issues involving consideration in current cases
• New section on discharge of duty, as it relates to the pre-existing duty rule
• Deletes Batsakis; retains four cases in full-text opinions; converts ten cases into Example/Analysis format

Ch. 5: Alternatives to Consideration

• Moves Pavel (irrevocable offers based on reliance) from the mutual-assent chapter into this chapter, in the section on promissory estoppel

Ch. 6: Defenses to Contract Enforcement

• Moves the section on incapacity to precede the section on defects in mutual assent
• Adds Example/Analysis illustrations of the infancy and incapacity defenses
• Adds new problems on incapacity, mistake, misrepresentation and duress
• Adds a new Example/Analysis illustration of the misrepresentation defense to illustrate the use of puffery statements
• Adds the full-text opinion of EverBank v. Marini, which sets out the application of the duress defense and the distinction between void and avoidable contracts
• Converts the “refrigerator cases” into Example/Analysis format
• Deletes AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and replaces it with article excerpts discussing recent jurisprudence on the unconscionability doctrine
• Updates the sampling of enforcement actions by state AGs as to unfair or deceptive acts or practices
• Revises and updates the discussion on surrogacy contracts.
• Retains seven cases in full-text opinions; converts ten cases into Example/Analysis format; and adds a case in Example/Analysis format

Ch. 7: Statute of Frauds

• Revises text describing the various categories of contracts typically covered by statutes of frauds, illustrated by a number of case examples
• Adds Example/Analysis illustrations of various issues in modifications—waiver of no-oral-modification clause, consideration, and use of partial performance exception to statute of frauds
• Adds Example/Analysis illustrations showing competing judicial approaches to application of promissory estoppel to avoid statute of frauds
• Converts Sterling v. Taylor and Owen v. Hendricks from full-text opinion to Example/Analysis format

Ch. 8: Content and Meaning of the Contract

• Revises text throughout chapter to emphasize practical significance of issues involving contract interpretation in contract litigation (including distinction between issues of fact and law), as well as differences in judicial approaches to interpretation questions
• Reformats the discussion of canons of construction and replaces two problems with a new one, to encourage more dynamic student engagement
• Restructures and reorganizes discussion of parol evidence rule to distinguish between issues related to nature of the writing and issues related to nature of the evidence introduced
• Adds explanatory text and chart to clarify difference between promises and conditions, between express and implied conditions, and among various kinds of conditions
• Retains twelve cases in full-text opinions; converts eight cases to Example/Analysis format; adds four new cases in Example/Analysis format; and deletes three cases

Ch. 9: Performance, Breach, and Excuse

• Discussion of implied covenants clarified by revised text and new problems that build on the introduction to covenants added to Ch. 8
• Adds text, new Example/Analysis case, and flowchart to clarify difference between total and partial breach
• Adds text and changes order of discussion of excuses to clarify relationship between impossibility and impracticability
• Converts K & G Construction Co. v. Harris into an interactive problem
• Retains seven cases in full-text opinions; converts seven cases into Example/Analysis format; adds five new cases in Example/Analysis format; and deletes two cases

Ch. 10: Remedies

• Adds explanatory text, as well as new charts on the remedial principles associated with contract remedies and the overlap of contract and tort
• Adds new problems on comparing damages, mitigation of damages, liquidated damages and specific performance
• Converts former text discussion into Example/Analysis illustrations on measuring direct damages
• Converts the text discussions of Rockingham County v. Luten Bridge Co. and Britton v. Turner to Example/Analysis format
• Adds new chart at the end of the chapter providing a guide to the meaning of each remedial concept
• Adds the full-text opinion of Eker Brothers, Inc. v. Rehders which applies the principles of restitution, in place of Lancellotti v. Thomas
• Retains nine cases in full-text opinions; converts eleven cases into Example/Analysis format; adds two new cases in Example/Analysis format

Ch. 11: Third-Party Rights and Duties

• Greatly streamlines the chapter (2/3 shorter), so it can be taught in 1-2 classes at the end of the semester
• Adds more diagrams of three-party transactions
• Deletes three advanced cases; converts five cases to Example/Analysis format, to speed students’ reading and understanding

Learn more about this series.