Contract Law and the Legislature: Autonomy, Expectations, and the Making of Legal Doctrine

About the Author

TT Arvind is Professor of Law at York Law School, University of York. He is the author of Contract Law (2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 2010) and a co-editor of Tort Law and the Legislature: Common Law, Statute and the Dynamics of Legal Change (Hart Publishing 2012).

Jenny Steele is Professor of Law at the York Law School, University of York, the author of Risks and Legal Theory (Hart Publishing, 2004), and Tort Law: Text, Cases and Materials 2nd edn Oxford University Press, 2010).

Product Description

This volume revisits some of the key debates about the nature and shape of contract law, in light of the impact that statutes have had on its development. With contributions from leading contract law scholars, it fills a significant gap in existing theoretical and doctrinal analyses of contract law, which rely primarily on cases to put forward accounts of the general principles and structure of contract law.

Statutory rules are, typically, seen as being specific instances of legal regulation that carve out exceptions to these general principles for specific reasons of policy. This treatment of these rules has resulted in an incomplete understanding of the nature of contract law and the principles that underpin it. By drawing specifically on contract statutes, the volume produces a more complete picture of modern contract law. A companion to the ground-breaking Tort Law and the Legislature: Common Law, Statute and the Dynamics of Legal Change (Hart Publishing, 2012) this collection will have a significant impact on the study of contract law.