Details
Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract offers twelve original essays by leading contract scholars. As with the essays in the companion volume, Landmark Cases in the Law of Restitution (Hart, 2006) each essay takes as its focus a particular leading case, and analyses that case in its historical or theoretical context.
The cases range from the early eighteenth- to the late twentieth-centuries, and deal with an array of contractual doctrines. Some of the essays call for their case to be stripped of its landmark status, whilst others argue that it has more to offer than we have previously appreciated.
The particular historical context of these landmark cases, as revealed by the authors, often shows that our current assumptions about the case and what it stands for are either mistaken, or require radical modification.
And the book also explores several common themes which are fundamental to the development of the law of contract: for instance, the influence of commercial expectations, appeals to 'reason' and the significance of particular judicial ideologies and techniques.
- 1.
Coggs v Barnard (1703) DAVID IBBETSON - 2.
Pillans v Van Mierop (1765) GERARD MCMEEL - 3.
Carter v Boehm (1766) STEPHEN WATTERSON - 4.
Da Costa v Jones (1778) WARREN SWAIN - 5.
Hochster v De La Tour (1853) PAUL MITCHELL - 6.
Taylor v Caldwell (1863) CATHARINE MACMILLAN - 7.
Smith v Hughes (1871) JOHN PHILLIPS - 8.
Foakes v Beer (1884) MICHAEL LOBBAN - 9.
Hongkong Fir Shipping Co v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, The Hongkong Fir (1961) DONAL NOLAN - 10.
Suisse Atlantique Societe d'Armament SA v NV Rotterdamsche Kolen Centrale (1966) ROGER BROWNSWORD - 11.
Reardon Smith Lines Ltd v Yngvar Hansen-Tangen, The Diana Prosperity (1976) MICHAEL BRIDGE - 12.
Johnson v Agnew (1979) CHARLES MITCHELL
Charles Mitchell is a Professor of Law at King's College London. He writes widely on the law of trusts and the law of obligations, and his recent publications include Underhill and Hayton's Law Relating to Trusts and Trustees (17th edn, 2006) (co-authored with David Hayton and Paul Matthews) and Subrogation: Law and Practice (2007) (co-authored with Stephen Watterson).
Paul Mitchell is a Reader in Law at King's College London and the author of The Making of the Modern Law of Defamation (Hart, 2005).
Together they co-edited Landmark Cases in the Law of Restitution (Hart, 2006).
The work presents a refreshing take on the cases examined.
Anthony Lo Surdo
Australian Banking and Finance Law Bulletin
October 2008
Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract is a worthwhile collection of essays to have in any library, private or public…one is kept in suspense over the nature of the essay about to be encountered, and the delightful spread ranges from the historical to the doctrinal to the theoretical-more than enough to satisfy anyone interested in the law of contract generally or specifically.
Goh Yihan
Singapore Journal of Legal Studies
July 2009
...the particular interest of the essays lies in the background historical, legal, economic and social material which the authors uncover. That a case is a landmark would, one might think, mean that it had received so much attention that there is not much new to say about it. But this is far from being so, and the fascinating background material provided in the book is almost always an intriguing pleasure to read.
David Campbell
Journal of Legal History
