Sources of Contract Law Common Law predominant locatoin for law pertaining to contracts in the us is in published opinions of state

court judges decisions id rules, and gathering the rules from all the cases gives way to "common law" rules rules enacted by a federal, state, or local legislature are called "statutory laws" and the enacted laws are "statutes" "stare decisis" doctrine says that prior cases establish a precedent so that a like case arising in the future is to be decided in the same way there is no Constitutional requirement or written rule that precedent be followed decisions for higher court in the state are precedent for the lower courts in that state; however, decisions are not given precedential effect in other states decisions from outside the jurisdiction are said to be "persuasive" rather than "binding" rapid societal and economic change has weakened the tradition of precedent Statutory Law State and federal statutes articulating contract law have proliferated over the past 70 years most statutes implemented at the state level The Uniform Commercial Code, enacted in some form by nearly every state, is the most pervasive form of contract law contributes to the uniformity of contract law between states UCC is not federal statutory law In contrast to Common law, a judge deciding an issue of statutory law must adhere to the statutes if applicable judges have no lattitude to adjust or abandon statutory laws judges responsibility is to interpret the statutes and it's applicability as allocated by the US and State constitutions Contracts matters are contained in Articles 1 and 2 of the UCC Article 2 of the UCC regulates only contracts pertaining to the sale of goods UCC is restricted to regulating the sale of goods, leaving many areas, including medical service, unregulated The UCC rules concerning the transaction MUST be applied if the transaction is indeed a sale of goods as defined

if the transaction is not a sale of goods, the Code's statutes are not mandatory.....persuasive, not binding UCC was created by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute one explicit goal of the drafters of the code was to elimante laws tha the drafters considered unhelpful and misguided the code contains 'Official Comments" that clarify many confusing points, and as a result many judges rely on the comments to interpret the code to a much greater extent than used when using other legal reference texts The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods (Vienna Convention, CISG) the equivalent of a treaty and enacted in 1988 excludes great britain and Japan promotes uniformity and observance of good faith in international law CISG is the mandatory rule for international sales of goods in which the parties come from different countries who are signatories of CISG CISG requires less in the way of written evidence of a deal than the UCC Influential Scholarly Work, and the Restatement of Contracts these are persuasive, and never binding The American Law Institute (ALI) seeks to create "restatements of law" that would reduce to a fairly simple set of rules the law contain in the massive volumes of case law critics worry that rather than just "restating", ALI scholars are pushing in a certain direction because the scholars thought that side to be preferable FACTS D entered into contract with P to sell a certain amount of chicken. When the chicken arrived in switzerland, P found that one sort of the birds was not the kind he intended the birds weren't young chickens, suitable for frying, but rather steewing chickens and cheaper and less desirable D contends that he believed that any type of chicken would meet the contract specifications, as long as it was the correct quantity and weight P contends that he truly believed that "chicken" mean a young

chicken suitable for roiling or frying P brought lawsuit on grounds that D delivered goods that did not meet the specificatios of the contract ISSUES Does a plaintiff who seeks to discern a contract's ambiguous terms into a narrower sense of a disputed word have the burden of proof to prove that meaning? More simply, how does one define "chicken?" HOLDING/RULE Yes, the court ruled that the word "chicken" alone was too ambiguous to sufficiently warrant a breach of contract The defendant noted that the contract calls for US...Gov inspected, alluding to the Dep of Ag's regulations would by used as reference, which would favor the defendant's side. the plaintiff claimed that the word "chicken" was widely accepted in the industry in the chicken to mean young chicken, but couldnt prove theacceptance of the word's meaning under NY law the defendant proved that other regulations supported his definition of the word chicken the defendant was able to show that if he were to have shipped the birds that the plaintiff said he had truly desired, he would have essentially lost money, claiming that the P could not reasonably expect the D to ship the chicken without making some profit considering all evidence, the court decided that the defendant truly believed it could comply with the contract by shipping stewing chickens, and that the defendants definition of "chicken" fit the evidence more closely than did the plaintfifs, since the burden of proof is on the P