Unilateral Contracts: An Examination of Traditional Concepts and the Proposed Solution of the ALI Restatement of Contracts, Second (Tentative Draft No. 1)

Authors

John Yetter

Abstract

A basic function of any legal system is to provide a set of rules to govern the consequences of conduct in society. Some degree of inflexibility must necessarily attach to the application of those rules, not only to assure equal justice, but also to explicitly define what conduct is legally permissible. Although it is desirable that the legal consequences of conduct be reasonably certain, a rigid application of rules occasionally leads to clear injustice. To avoid these hardships, courts have resorted to certain fictionalizations in order to circumvent undesirable consequences. An alternative approach is to build an element of equitable flexibility into the rules themselves. This comment will attempt to illustrate these observations by examining the law pertaining to unilateral contracts.

First Page

175

Recommended Citation

John Yetter, Unilateral Contracts: An Examination of Traditional Concepts and the Proposed Solution of the ALI Restatement of Contracts, Second (Tentative Draft No. 1), 5 Duq. L. Rev. 175 (1966).
Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol5/iss2/6