Read the contract, please

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted August 16, 2021 11:33 AM

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter had three rules for interpreting laws: “(1) Read the statute; (2) read the statute; (3) read the statute!” Circuit Judge Henry J. Friendly, Benchmarks, pg. 202 (University of Chicago Press 1967). Applying the same intensely recursive approach to a breach of contract case, the California Court Appeal concluded that a trial judge erred in ruling that an agreement to supply truckloads of water to a rural mobile home park was terminable at will. An “attentive” reading of the …

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