Sanctity of contracts in a secular age equity, fairness and enrichment

Machine generated contents note: Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Concepts derived from equity; 3. Duress; 4. Interpretation and implied terms; 5. The limits of enforcement; 6. Conclusiveness of documents in the digital age; 7. Unconscionability, good faith, and abuse of rights; 8. Unjust enrichment; 9. Law and equity; 10. Judicial powers in relation to legislation; 11. Judgment, powers, and discretion; 12. Public policy; 13. Conclusion.

"The phrase 'sanctity of contracts' implies that contracts should always be strictly enforced. But when this objective is relentlessly implemented ruinous burdens are sometimes imposed on one party and extravagant enrichments conferred on the other. Despite recognition of the need to control highly unreasonable contracts in various particular contexts, there remain many instances in which the courts have refused to modify unreasonable contracts, sometimes with extravagant results that are avowedly 'grotesque'. In the computer age assent may be inferred from a click on a screen in the absence of any real agreement to the terms, which are often very burdensome to the user. In this book, arguments are advanced in favour of recognition of a general judicial power to relieve against highly unreasonable contracts, not only for the benefit of the disadvantaged party, but for the avoidance of unjust enrichment, and for the avoidance of anomalous gaps in the law"--

"The historical aspect, which includes attention to the recent past, seeks to establish that, in a wide variety of circumstances, by various techniques, the courts have very frequently modified or set aside contracts on the grounds that they are highly unreasonable, but that, nevertheless, there remain large gaps. The critical aspect advances the argument that the resulting state of the law contains numerous uncertainties, anomalies, inconsistencies, and injustices.If avoidance of inconsistency were the only object sought to be attained, it might be possible for the law to regress to a rule of absolute sanctity of contracts, but this would require the abandonment of many well-established and recently-affirmed doctrines, including those relating to forfeitures, penalties, equitable relief for unfairness, mistake, frustration, duress, techniques of interpretation, the limits to contractual enforcement, avoidance of unjust enrichment, control of unfair domestic agreements, and public policy"--