A 'Traditional' and 'Behavioral' Law-and-Economics Analysis of Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Company

Abstract:     
Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Company is a casebook favorite, taught in virtually every first-year Contract Law class. In the case, the D.C. Circuit holds that courts have the power to deny enforcement of contract terms if the terms are "unconscionable," and it remands the case to the lower court to consider whether the facts of the case meet this standard. This article, written for a session of the 2004 AALS Annual Meeting sponsored by the Contracts Section, analyzes the question that the D.C. Circuit posed to the lower court in Williams - and that Contracts teachers routinely pose to their students - from a "traditional" law-and-economics perspective, and from a "behavioral" law-and-economics perspective.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Accepted Paper Series