Contracts, in brief

So I did a little experiment yesterday: I didn't brief any of the three cases I had for Intro to Law (a pass/fail course), but did brief the case I had for Civ Pro (which is graded). Oh boy, did it make a difference.

Not that I was called on to present the cases. I just could follow those in one class and couldn't in the other.

But what's really amazing about the briefing process is really how I find something that was totally incomprehensible to be actually quite straightforward. Take contracts, for instance.

Last night, I briefed my last case for today's contracts class, and on my first read through it, I must have fallen asleep, because I had no idea what the hell the judge was writing about. Something about the philosophy of botched nose jobs.

Once I forced myself to go through the process my school tells me to go through, however, it was clear as day: how do you calculate the damage of a bad nose? Is it how much the woman paid the doctor and hospital ("restitution")? Is it how much she would have gained had the nose been correctly jobbed ("expectation interest")? Or do you look at how much she went through only to not get the nose she wanted and was promised in the end ("reliance")?

Because a suit under contractual obligations doesn't impose punishments, "pain and suffering" by the patient isn't a reason to hit the doctor with huge malpractice fines (that'd be a tort). But "pain and suffering" is what the woman underwent in order to get a new nose, and she wuz robbed, right?

Since a contract doesn't even have to be oral, but simply reasonably understood by both parties, I do have to wonder how many ex-girlfriends owe me reliance for pain and suffering.

Comments

[Dylan Kerbrat]

Very funny.