Pace University DigitalCommons@Pace Pace Law Faculty Publications School of Law 1-1-1982 The Relationship of Contractual Remedies to Political and Social Status: A Preliminary Inquiry David S. Cohen Pace Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty Part of the Contracts Commons, and the Legal Remedies Commons Recommended Citation David Cohen, The Relationship of Contractual Remedies to Political and Social Status: A Preliminary Inquiry, 32 U. Toronto L.J. 31 (1982), http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/428/. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pace Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. David Cohen* THE RELATIONSHIP OF CONTRACTUAL REMEDIES TO POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STATUS: A PRELIMINARY INQUIRY? 'And you see', Trollope makes Archdeacon Grantley say, 'land gives so much more than rent. It gives position and influence and political power, to say nothing about the game." What things 'give' is the very heart of the law of property. And what agreements 'give' is equally at the heart of the law of contract. No legal system could hope to develop at all unless it established rules defining the remedies available to enforce agreements or, put another way, insisting that one 'gets what one has been promised.' However we choose to define the substance of consensual obligations, we must include a reference to enforceability.' An individual who has had his contractual expectations shattered and goes to law in order to obtain compensation or performance premises his claim on the destruction of his perceived wealth, represented by his personal expectation of profit created at the instant of agreement.3 Both parties stand to gain by the exchange through the enjoyment of their respective profits which did not exist prior to the bargain.