Fault in American Contract Law

Omri Ben-Shahar is the Frank and Bernice Greenberg Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. He has written extensively in the areas of contract law, products liability, and law and economics. Ben-Shahar is the editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and, recently, the book Boilerplate: Foundation of Market Contracts. Ariel Porat is Alain Poher Professor of Law at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law and its former Dean, as well as Fischel-Neil Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. Porat has written numerous articles in the areas of torts and contracts and is the author of the books Contributory Fault in the Law of Contracts and Tort Liability under Uncertainty (with Alex Stein).

Part I. The Case for Strict Liability: 1. Let us never blame a contract breaker Richard A. Posner; 2. In (partial) defense of strict liability in contract Robert E. Scott; 3. The fault principle as the chameleon of contract law: a market function approach Stefan Grundmann; Part II. The Case for Fault: 4. How fault shapes contract law George M. Cohen; 5. Fault in contract law Eric A. Posner; 6. The role of fault in contract law: unconscionability, unexpected circumstances, interpretation, mistake, and nonperformance Melvin Aron Eisenberg; Part III. Between Strict Liability and Fault: 7. Fault at the contract-tort interface Roy Kreitner; 8. The many faces of fault in contract law: or how to do economics right, without really trying Richard A. Epstein; 9. The productive tension between official and unofficial stories of fault in contract law Martha M. Ertman; Part IV. Willful Breach: 10. When is a willful breach 'willful'? The link between definitions and damages Richard Craswell; 11. Willful breach: an efficient screen for efficient breach Peter Siegelman and Steve Thel; 12. An information theory of willful breach Oren Bar-Gill and Omri Ben-Shahar; 13. Contract law and the willfulness diversion Barry E. Adler; Part V. Comparative Fault: 14. A comparative fault defense in contract law Ariel Porat; 15. Stipulated damages, super-strict liability, and mitigation in contract law Saul Levmore; 16. Creditor's fault: in search of a comparative frame Fabrizio Caffagi; Part VI. The Morality of Breach: 17. Why breach of contract may not be immoral given the incompleteness of contracts Steven Shavell; 18. Fault and harm in breach of contract Dori Kimel; 19. Fault in contracts, a psychological approach Tess Wilkinson-Ryan.