Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks
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Osgoode Hall Law Journal Volume 54 Issue 4 Volume 54, Issue 4 (Summer 2017) Article 10 Creating Opportunities: A Vision for the Future 10-13-2017 Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks David Sandomierski University of Toronto Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj Part of the Legal Education Commons Article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Citation Information Sandomierski, David. "Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks." Osgoode Hall Law Journal 54.4 (2017) : 1181-1244. https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol54/iss4/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Osgoode Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Osgoode Hall Law Journal by an authorized editor of Osgoode Digital Commons. Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks Abstract Canadian common law contract law casebooks are beset with a tension. On the one hand, they all reveal a sustained commitment to the “wholesale assault on the jurisprudence of forms, concepts, and rules” that typifies American Legal Realism and its intellectual descendants. Concern with underlying values, functional reasoning, social realities, and policy thinking pervades the explicit messages of Canadian contract law casebooks and their editors’ related writings. On the other hand, the two casebooks most frequently assigned embody an allegiance to rules and courts that has a close kinship with the classical attitudes purportedly rejected. They convey a monolithic image of legal reasoning that emphasizes rules, certainty, and analogical reasoning and that marginalizes policy thinking. The range of skills, and image of lawyer, communicated by the books is much narrower than their critical and realist introductions imply. Accordingly, the casebooks suggest that Canadian legal thought may be typified by theoretical eclecticism coexisting with methodological homogeneity. This characterization provokes three alternative responses. First, casebook editors may embrace this vision and mount a principled defence of it. Second, they may reject it and aim to operationalize their realist and critical commitments into a more methodologically plural casebook, as has been done in the United States. Third, a re-imagined set of teaching materials organized not around cases but around “empirically recurring problems of contracting parties” may transcend the paradigm. This last avenue holds the most promise for embodying a capacious vision of legal education. Keywords Law--Study and teaching; Contracts; Canada Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Cover Page Footnote I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, via the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. Canadian legal publishers—Thomson Reuters Canada, Emond, and LexisNexis Canada—have generously provided free review copies of casebooks and other materials. They have also shared confidential sales data, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I am grateful to the National Committee of Accreditation of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada for providing details about their Contract Law examinations sittings. For helpful comments and encouragement, I am endebted to Angela Fernandez, Jennifer Nedelsky, David Schneiderman, Blaine Baker, Joel Bakan, Thomas McMorrow, Joshua Karton, John Enman-Beech, Anton Piatigorsky, Sarah Polley, and the anonymous reviewer. This article incorporates empirical research conducted under a Research Ethics Board approval at the University of Toronto. This article is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol54/iss4/10 1181 Tension and Reconciliation in Canadian Contract Law Casebooks DAVID SANDOMIERSKI* Canadian common law contract law casebooks are beset with a tension. On the one hand, they all reveal a sustained commitment to the “wholesale assault on the jurisprudence of forms, concepts, and rules” that typifies American Legal Realism and its intellectual descendants. Concern with underlying values, functional reasoning, social realities, and policy thinking pervades the explicit messages of Canadian contract law casebooks and their editors’ related writings. On the other hand, the two casebooks most frequently assigned embody an allegiance to rules and courts that has a close kinship with the classical attitudes purportedly rejected. They convey a monolithic image of legal reasoning that emphasizes rules, certainty, and analogical reasoning and that marginalizes policy thinking. The range of skills, and image of lawyer, communicated by the books is much narrower than their critical and realist introductions imply. Accordingly, the casebooks suggest that Canadian legal thought may be typified by theoretical eclecticism coexisting with methodological homogeneity. This characterization provokes three alternative responses. First, casebook editors may embrace this vision and mount a principled defence of it. Second, they may reject it and aim to operationalize their realist and critical commitments into a more methodologically plural casebook, as has been done in the United States. Third, a re-imagined set of teaching * SJD candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, via the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. Canadian legal publishers—Thomson Reuters Canada, Emond, and LexisNexis Canada—have generously provided free review copies of casebooks and other materials. They have also shared confidential sales data, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I am grateful to the National Committee of Accreditation of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada for providing details about their Contract Law examinations sittings. For helpful comments and encouragement, I am endebted to Angela Fernandez, Jennifer Nedelsky, David Schneiderman, Blaine Baker, Joel Bakan, Thomas McMorrow, Joshua Karton, John Enman-Beech, Anton Piatigorsky, Sarah Polley, and the anonymous reviewer. This article incorporates empirical research conducted under a Research Ethics Board approval at the University of Toronto. 1182 (2017) 54 OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNAL materials organized not around cases but around “empirically recurring problems of contracting parties” may transcend the paradigm. This last avenue holds the most promise for embodying a capacious vision of legal education. Les recueils de décisions en droit contractuel en common law du Canada sont traversés par une tension particulière. D’une part, ils traduisent tous la volonté systématique de « combattre massivement la jurisprudence des formes, des concepts et des règles » dans la droite lignée du réalisme juridique américain et de ses héritiers intellectuels. Les inquiétudes relatives aux valeurs sous-jacentes, au raisonnement fonctionnel, aux réalités sociales et à la réflexion stratégique transparaissent dans les messages explicitement véhiculés dans les recueils canadiens de décisions en droit contractuel et les écrits connexes de leurs rédacteurs. D’autre part, les deux recueils les plus fréquemment étudiés témoignent d’un profond respect envers les règles et les tribunaux et d’un lien étroit avec les attitudes classiques soi-disant rejetées. Ils présentent une image monolithique du raisonnement juridique en mettant l’accent sur les règles, la certitude et le raisonnement analogique tout en marginalisant la réflexion stratégique. Les compétences et l’image des avocats, telles qu’elles sont transmises par ces recueils, sont bien plus restreintes que celles induites par leurs introductions critiques et réalistes. En conséquence, les recueils donnent à penser que la pensée juridique canadienne se caractérise par un éclectisme théorique qui cohabite avec une homogénéité méthodologique. Une telle caractérisation entraîne trois réactions différentes. Premièrement, les rédacteurs de recueils peuvent partager cette vision et la défendre de manière raisonnée. Deuxièmement, ils peuvent la rejeter et chercher à mettre en application leurs engagements réalistes et critiques dans un recueil de décisions mobilisant des méthodologies plurielles, comme c’est le cas aux États-Unis. Troisièmement, ils peuvent transcender ce paradigme en élaborant un ensemble réinventé de supports pédagogiques, qui ne s’articulerait pas autour de décisions judiciaires, mais plutôt autour de « problèmes empiriques rencontrés fréquemment par des parties contractantes ». Cette dernière option offre les meilleures chances d’établir une vision globale de l’éducation juridique. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1183 A. Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 1189 I. CRITICAL AND REALIST PERSPECTIVES IN CANADIAN CONTRACT LAW CASEBOOKS .............. 1191 A. Swan ................................................................................................................................. 1192 1. The Swan vision ................................................................................................