Problematic Relationships in the Workplace or Contract as Promise

Problematic Relationships in the Workplace

Author: Janie M Harden Fritz

This seminal work on relationships in the workplace explores how problematic workplace relationships are conceptualized, the ways in which they impact people, and explores the recommended approaches to increasing health and wellness in organizations. Scholars from rhetorical, social scientific, constructivist, and critical perspectives offer a rich array of analyses and original studies of value to other scholars, advanced students, and practitioners.

See also: Bakin without Eggs or And Thats How You Make Cheese

Contract as Promise: A Theory of Contractual Obligation

Author: Charles Fried

This book displays the underlying structure of a complex body of law and integrates that structure with moral principles.

Charles Fried grounds the basic legal institution of contract in the morality of promise, under which individuals incur obligations freely by invoking each other's trust. Contract law and the promise principle are contrasted to the socially imposed obligations of compensation, restitution, and sharing, which determine the other basic institutions of private law, and which come into control where the parties have not succeeded in invoking the promise principle—as in the case of mistake or impossibility. Professor Fried illustrates his argument with a wide range of concrete examples; and opposing views of contract law are discussed in detail, particularly in connection with the doctrines of good faith, duress, and unconscionability.

For law students and legal scholars, Contract as
Promise offers a coherent survey of an important legal concept. For philosophers and social scientists, the book is a unique demonstration of the practical and detailed entailments of moral theory.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: The Life of Contract

2. Contract as Promise


Promise


The Moral Obligation of Promise


What a Promise is Worth


Remedies in and around the Promise

3. Consideration

4. Answering a Promise: Offer and Acceptance


Promises and Vows


Acceptance and the Law of Third-Party Beneficiaries


The Simple Circuitry of Offer and Acceptance


Rejections, Counteroffers, Contracts at a Distance, Crossed Offers


Reliance on an Offer

5. Gaps


Mistake, Frustration, and Impossibility


Letting the Loss Lie Where It Falls


Parallels with General Legal Theory: An Excursion


Filling the Gaps

6. Good Faith


"Honesty in Fact"


Good Faith in Performance

7. Duress and Unconscionability


Duress


Coercion and Rights


Property


Hard Bargains


Unconscionability, Economic Duress, and Social Justice


Bad Samaritans

8. The Importance of Being Right


You Can Always Get Your Money Back


Conditions


Waivers, Forfeitures, Repudiations

Notes

Index