University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Articles Faculty Scholarship 2002 A Footnote for Jack Dawson James J. White University of Michigan Law School,
[email protected] David A. Peters Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/848 Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles Part of the Contracts Commons, and the Legal Biography Commons Recommended Citation White, James J. "A Footnote for Jack Dawson." D. A. Peters, co-author. Mich. L. Rev. 100, no. 7 (2002): 1954-79. This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A FOOTNOTE FOR JACK DAWSON James J. White* and David A. Peters** Jack Dawson, known to many at Michigan as Black Jack, taught at the Law School from 1927 to 1958. Much of his work was published in the Michigan Law Review, where he served as a student editor during the 1923-24 academic year. We revisit his work and provide a footnote to his elegant writing on mistake and supervening events. In Part I, we talk a little about Jack the man. In Part II, we recite the nature and significance of his scholarly work. Part III deals briefly with the cases decided in the last twenty years by American courts on impracticability, impossibility, mistake and frustration of purpose.