Thursday, November 11, 2021
Richard Craswell's Allegheny College Suite
We are indebted to Richard Craswell for a great deal of contracts scholarship as well as quite a few musical compositions on the subject of contracts law. We posted many of them back in 2012. This one came later:
It is worth reading Professor Craswell's notes after the case. They explain, among other things, why Judge Cardozo raises promissory estoppel but never rules on whether the College could enforce the charitable pledge on that basis.
Judge Cardozo could not really rule on that basis, because the College never claimed any reliance. Or could he? He's Cardozo! He could persuade me of just about anything. Because he did not write it (but concurred in the decision), I will never understand the reasoning in Mitchill v. Lath.
H/T my student, Tom Taylor.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2021/11/weekend-frivolity-richard-craswells-allegheny-college-suite.html
Re Cardozo's concurrence in Mitchell: His Honor appears to have been pretty hard-nosed when it came to the importance of written agreements. He concurred in a number of statute of frauds cases in which was pretty clear that the deal had been made but not memorialized sufficiently to satisfy the statute. Poel (responsible for giving us 2-207) is an example. Though not argued as an SF case that issue lurked below the surface and In my opinion accounts for why the majority found no deal. Parol evidence is another area that affects the sanctity of written contracts.
Posted by: John Wladis | Nov 11, 2021 12:00:52 PM