Talk:Standard form contract

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I've basically re-written this article, and changed it from adhesion contracts to standard form contracts which is the more commonly used term, especially outside the US. The section on common law treatment could be expanded to other jurisdictions (UK, NZ) and the section on legislation could be made more specific, though that's a daunting task considering the variety of the law out there. I don't know much about European/civilian law, so that could be added to aswell... Psychobabble

Seems that the quite successful use of Standard forms of Contract in the building industry might need inclusion in this article - I don't know anything about US construction Law though, but I could write a little on the UK side of things. mcginnly

Add a UK section, whats preventing you from doing that? It should be noted that Standard Form Contracts and Contracts of Adhesion are the same thing, but boiler plates are similar, though distinct in that they are basically restricted to "disclaimers" or "contracts" on the back of ticket stubs, claim checks, etc. They are called boiler plates for a reason, and that reason is because the contract resembles a boiler plate. Failure to notice this is a failure to recognize the legal terms of art. Also, the article is one sided as hell. Standard form contracts have vast advantages. 1) Efficiency in many ways, when the court interprets one std form K, all are interpreted; reduce the time and trouble needed to draft a k; and make planning and a solid contract available. 2) Risk assessment and security; risks become more calculable, and security becomes more foreseeable. DeWitt

[edit] Why are they called "adhesion" contracts?

It would be nice if the article explained this, especially to legal laypersons who might be curious. +ILike2BeAnonymous 06:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It comes from the meaning of adhesion in the sense of something sticky. A contract of adhesion is one you are literally stuck with in the sense that it is stuck before your face and you either have to sign it or walk. That is, you either have to take the contract as is or completely forego the service that is being sold along with the contract, because all sellers use similar contracts and the buyers do not have enough buying power to negotiate for significant modifications of the terms.

For example, all car dealerships in the United States traditionally use the same contract (with minor modifications for each state) for sales of cars on credit. If you don't want to sign that contract, you will not get a car. You can always buy a car with cash, but unless you're Donald Trump, you will have to wait at least a few months (or years) to save up enough money to buy a car free and clear. In contrast, in high-value transactions involving art, corporations, athletes, and so on, sophisticated, wealthy and powerful persons can sit down together in a conference room (accompanied by a small army of lawyers for each side) and argue over every point in the contract. --Coolcaesar 09:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The classic example of an adhesion contract, the one given to me by an actual lawyer when I asked what the term meant, is the ticket you get from a parking garage that has legalese printed on the back. This is the classic "take it or leave it" contract that you implicitly sign by accepting; maybe it should go into the article as an explanation.

By the way, another aspect of these contracts that ought to be dealt with in the article is the fact that they are, as I understand it, fairly unenforceable. Courts tend to recognize the unequal power relationship between parties and take that into account when litigation over these contracts comes up; this ought to be covered as well. +ILike2BeAnonymous 03:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The article fails to go into the positive aspects of the Standard form contract. It is one sided and opposed to it.138.16.12.232 21:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

There are parts of this that should probably be reworded for neutrality. Why not have a go yourself? — mholland 21:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This article details a recognized area of legal analysis, which tries to ameliorate the negative effects of standard form contracts. There is no place in that legal discussion for advocating the use of such contracts; that is an economic, business, or ideological discussion outside the scope of legal research. Questioning the neutrality of this article because it fails to identify the positive aspects of standard form contracts reveals a poor understanding of legal studies.

[edit] Neutrality or confusion?

I think the problem here may not be neutrality, but confusion as to what this is refering to. If you look to the bottom of this there's a link to JCT, and it was a discussion of the type of contracts that they provide that I was looking for. Essentially JCT is a commercial organisation which sells neutral contracts to people in the construction business, but there are a number of other organisations doing similar things. The value is if you have a standard form of contract, you know it's fair and should you need to go to court there is plenty of precedent about the outcome. As I understand it, it also includes a clause (2.21) which overrides the terms of any contract bills attached to the project - which is the (potentially) skewed boiler plate text that you are talking about and which can lead to these so-called 'battle of the forms'. I think you need to go back to the adhesion contract name. I'm afraid I can't really write this up as I am just a second year Architecture student in the UK and basically only have a superficial understanding of the subject.Klue 11:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with Klue. The problem here is not neutrality as such as much as it is confusion. All adhesion contracts are standard form/boilerplate contracts, but not all standard form/boilerplate contracts are adhesion contracts. For a good counterexample, consider invoices and purchase orders. These are essentially standard form contracts, many of which contain boilerplate language on the reverse. Between a corporation and an individual, this may well be an adhesion contract, but between two savvy operators, e.g. two large businesses, these are likely to be negotiable. A standard form contract can become a contract of adhesion if the difference in bargaining power between the parties is sufficiently inequitable.Valkyryn 22:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Having found no argument or justification for the inclusion of the neutrality tag whatsoever, I am removing the tag. Feel free to re-add it if accompanied this time by at least a nominal description of a neutrality problem on this talk page. 128.62.214.82 (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)