Main Content
Note
Farber prompts questions from a student who asks whether the court’s invocation of “public policy” is rightly understood as judicial legislation. This same student asks several follow up questions: If a court may void a contract that doesn’t break the law, how are parties supposed to know in advance whether their contract will be enforced? Suppose a power company hires a contractor to build a coal-burning power plant and the contractor breaches. May a judge refuse to enforce the contract on the grounds that carbon pollution harms the public? If not, what principle can distinguish that case from Farber? If so, what limits, if any, should there be on the power of courts to void contracts as contrary to public policy?
This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.