Tag: Contractual Intention

When Money Grew on Trees: Lucy v. Zehmer and Contracting in a Boom Market

Barak Richman & Dennis Schmelzer

As generations of law students have learned, Lucy v. Zehmer is a tale of two “doggoned drunks” drinking liquor and bantering over the sale of a farm the weekend before Christmas in 1952. Adrian Hardy Zehmer, allegedly drunk and joking, scribbled a contract for the sale of his farm on… Read More »

Three Pictures of Contract: Duty, Power, and Compound Rule

Gregory Klass - Georgetown University Law Center

H.L.A. Hart, following others before him, draws our attention to the difference between duty-imposing and power-conferring rules.  Duty-imposing rules require persons “to do or abstain from certain actions, whether they wish to or not.”  The law of theft, for example, instructs persons not to steal, no matter what their personal… Read More »