Preface

• Author: Val Ricks
• Pages: xiii-xiii

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Preface

Contract law is famously baffling—put together haphazardly, with no central theory

or goal. Welfare theorists, Kantians, and moralists have been battling for decades

over whose theory ought to trump, and some commentators have given up.

Sixteen years ago, I wondered whether teaching the materials chronologically

would allow a better understanding. After some study, I composed a book that

taught the doctrines of contract law from original materials, roughly

chronologically, but confirmed and expanded on the way with contemporary cases

and statutes. Teaching from this book revealed a remarkable coherence in contract

doctrines, mostly centered around bargain, a concept that, in itself, is neither theory

nor goal. The coherence is primarily doctrinal—it is legal coherence. The policies

and goals of the law differ from judge to judge, lawyer to lawyer, and among

litigants. But the doctrine remains coherent despite its ability to absorb and

instantiate the various theories and ends of contracting parties, arguing lawyers, and

opining judges. In this, contract law is an incredible achievement.

The issues contract law addresses have not changed in the nearly 500 years during

which the doctrines have developed. These issues include which promises to

enforce, how much evidence to require of a plaintiff before the defendant must

answer, and what evidence of hard bargaining and hard bargain will suffice to

unwind what would otherwise be a binding promise. Given the length of time we

have addressed these issues, it is perhaps not surprising that the law has worked out

a coherent structure. Given the length of time, however, it is also not surprising that

parts of that structure remain obscure.

Thanks to Jody Pratt, Sarah Humphrey, Jeff Kaiser, John Bohannan, and Derick

Lancaster for helping with the search for cases and reading the manuscript. And

thanks also to the hundreds of law students who have already learned from its pages.

Learning with you has been one of the delights of my life.

VDR, 2015