ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Jeremy Telman
Oklahoma City University
School of Law

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Contracts Limerick of the Week!

Icehouse

I know.  It's been a while.  I thought I had moved on, but just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

After we concluded our discussion of Mitchill v. Lath this week, my students demanded a Limerick.  I didn't have one.  I wrote most of the Limericks in my first few years of teaching, and I didn't start teaching Mitchill until a few years ago.  I've used all the easy rhyme schemes, so now any new Limericks I write will just feel recycled.  But then one of my students sent me the beginnings of a poem.  Her rhymes got my creative juices flowing (sort of) and this is the result.

As the Limerick suggests, I use Mitchill and Masterson v. Sine to illustrate the difference between Willistonian and Corbinian approaches to the parol evidence rule.

Mitchill v. Lath

In Mitchill's land deal with Lath,
He slipped down a cold primrose path.
That icehouse, it blights
His view, and his nights
Are consumed with Corbinian wrath.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2015/10/contracts-limerick-of-the-week-1.html

Famous Cases, Limericks, Teaching | Permalink

Comments

Please excuse me for not being a follower of your blog since the beginning, but have you shared your other limericks? Would love to read them...

Posted by: Matthew Bruckner | Oct 2, 2015 5:51:52 AM

Matthew and any other relatively recent additions to our readership: You can find all of the contracts (and business associations!) Limericks by clicking the Limericks tab at the bottom of the post or by picking Limericks from our Categories menu.

If, for some reason, you are interested in learning of the pedagogical purposes that might be achieved through Limericks, you can read my article, "Langdellian Limericks" in the Journal of Legal Education: http://jle.aals.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1206&context=home

This article includes an appendix containing all the contracts Limericks I had written up to that point.

Oh, and if you want to be able to find Limericks for specific contracts cases, check out our LibGuide:
http://lawlibguides.valpo.edu/contracts/cases and
http://lawlibguides.valpo.edu/contracts/casesii

Posted by: Jeremy Telman | Oct 2, 2015 6:02:10 AM

Inspired by Prof. Telman, I have used case-related limericks, borrowed from him and others, with success in my Contracts course. My experience was written up in the Fall 2012 issue of The Law Teacher, accessible through SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1973618

Posted by: otto stockmeyer | Oct 2, 2015 9:23:44 AM

Meta-tags... of course. Thanks for sharing.

Posted by: Matthew Bruckner | Oct 2, 2015 1:38:56 PM