Contract Disputes
Contracts are agreements or promises that the law will enforce. The law provides remedies if an agreement or a promise is breached. The law recognizes the performance of a promise as a duty.
Contracts are mainly governed by state statutory and common (judge-made) law. Parties to the contract are held to the terms of the agreement between the parties who are exchanging promises. Sometimes, private agreements may override many of the rules otherwise established by state law. Statutory law may require that some contracts be put in writing and executed with particular formalities. Many times parties may enter into a binding agreement without signing a formal written document. Most of the principles of the common law of contracts are outlined in the Restatement of the Law Second, Contracts , published by the American Law Institute. The Uniform Commercial Code, whose original articles have been adopted in nearly every state, represents a body of statutory law that governs important categories of contracts. The main articles that deal with the law of contracts are Article 1 (General Provisions) and Article 2 (Sales) . Sections of Article 9 (Secured Transactions) govern contracts assigning the rights to payment in security interest agreements. Contracts related to particular activities or business sectors may be highly regulated by state and/or federal law. See Law Relating To Other Topics Dealing with Particular Activities or Business Sectors .
