Brian Coote, CONTRACT AS ASSUMPTION Oxford: Hart Publishing (www.hartpub.co.uk), 2010. xxviii + 217 pp. ISBN 9781849460293. £29.99.
Pages | 315-318 |
Date | 01 May 2011 |
DOI | 10.3366/elr.2011.0039 |
Published date | 01 May 2011 |
This work brings together a number of essays on contract law (prefaced by a newly written introductory chapter) which were previously published by the author as separate journal articles between 1964 and 2006. The essays are linked thematically by the central thesis that contract is best explained as an act by which the contracting parties mutually assume obligations towards each other. To grasp this thesis the reader could simpy confine him- or herself to reading chapter 1, where Coote's theory is fully expounded and differentiated from pre-existing theories of contract law. However, a reading of the later chapters provides illumination of the theory within the context of specific aspects of contract law, aspects shown in a new light by the idea of contract as assumption. The essays included cover a range of topics: the doctrine of consideration (chs 3–5), exception clauses (ch 6); fundamental breach (ch 7); damages and the performance interest (ch 8); transferred loss claims and the performance interest (ch 9); third party rights (ch 10); and assumption of responsibility and pure economic loss in New Zealand (ch 11), a jurisdiction with which Coote is well familiar, being an emeritus professor of law at the University of Auckland.
Coote states, by reference to Charles Fried's famous work,
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