Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2000
Abstract
When contracting parties cannot quite define their obligations, they often resort to placeholder language, like "best efforts." They (and their counsel) likely have little idea of what they might mean, but, so long as they avoid litigation, it will not matter much. But "best efforts" clauses are on occasion litigated, and courts must read content into them. In Bloor v. Falstaff, a casebook favorite, the court held that Falstaff s lackluster promotional efforts for Ballantine beer violated its best efforts covenant. So far as I can tell, no commentators have questioned this outcome. Indeed, some commentators have found Falstaff s breach so egregious as to provide not much of a test of the boundaries of "best efforts." Farnsworth, for example, says: "Unfortunately, its decision did relatively little to add precision to the meaning of 'best efforts,' since Kalmanovitz [of Falstaff] fell so far short of the mark."
Disciplines
Contracts | Law | Law and Economics
Recommended Citation
Victor P. Goldberg,
In Search of Best Efforts: Reinterpreting Bloor v. Falstaff,
44
St. Louis U. L. J.
1465
(2000).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/680
Comments
Reprinted with permission of the Saint Louis University Law Journal © 2000, St. Louis University School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri.