Three by Posner

Authors

Victor P. Goldberg, Columbia Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

If Richard Posner did not invent the term “efficient breach,” he at least was its most aggressive marketer. I confess that nowadays I do not find the concept particularly useful, but that does not detract from its value. It was a catalyst, forcing scholars to consider the economic function of contract remedies. Any assessment of Judge Posner’s contracts jurisprudence must acknowledge that contribution.

In this paper, I will consider three of his opinions that appear with some regularity in contracts casebooks – Northern Indiana Public Service Company v. Carbon County Coal Company, Empire Gas v. American Bakeries, and Lake River v. Carborundum. To anticipate my conclusions, in the first I find his analysis and conclusions to be right (with one tiny quibble). In the second, I find his conclusion on liability correct, given the statute. I believe he could have been more aggressive on the remedy issue. Still, I cannot conclude that he was wrong. On the third, I conclude that he got the outcome wrong and made a number of other errors along the way.

Disciplines

Contracts | Law

Comments

Copyright © 2019 Scholarly Commons.

Recommended Citation

Victor P. Goldberg, Three by Posner, 50 U. Pac. L. Rev. 363 (2019).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2991