Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts Is Available

The Official Text of the Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts is now available to purchase.

This Restatement seeks to clarify how the courts have applied contract law embodied in the Restatement of the Law Second, Contracts, to transactions that either were not contemplated at the time the earlier Restatement was completed (and therefore not addressed), like the purchase of software licenses and all online transactions, or that became a more significant part of the economy since that time.

Consumer contracts present a fundamental challenge to the law of contracts, arising from the asymmetry in information, sophistication, and stakes between the parties to these contracts: the business and the consumers.

This Restatement is organized into the following Sections:

1. Definitions, Scope, and Outline
2. Adoption of Standard Contract Terms
3. Adoption of a Modification of Standard Contract Terms
4. Interpretation and Construction of Consumer Contracts
5. Discretionary Obligations
6. Unconscionability
7. Deception
8. Affirmations of Fact and Promises that Are Part of the Consumer Contract
9. Standard Contract Terms and the Parol-Evidence Rule
10. Effects of Derogation from Mandatory Provisions

The project was led by Reporters Oren Bar-Gill of Harvard Law School, Omri Ben-Shahar of the University of Chicago Law School, and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of New York University School of Law.

Purchase the book now on the ALI website.