Friedrich Kessler (1901 - 1998) was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School (1935-1938, 1947-1970), University of Chicago Law School, and University of California (Boalt) Law School. He was a contract law scholar, but also wrote of trade regulation law. He was regarded as a member of the American Legal Realism School. He was born in Hechingen, Germany, in 1901 and received his law degree from the University of Berlin in 1928.

PropertyValue
dbpprop:abstract
  • Friedrich Kessler (1901 - 1998) was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School (1935-1938, 1947-1970), University of Chicago Law School, and University of California (Boalt) Law School. He was a contract law scholar, but also wrote of trade regulation law. He was regarded as a member of the American Legal Realism School. He was born in Hechingen, Germany, in 1901 and received his law degree from the University of Berlin in 1928. He was a research member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Foreign and International Law in Berlin until 1934, when he fled Germany to avoid Nazi persecution. He died on January 21, 1998, in Berkeley, CA. His most celebrated article, Contracts of Adhesion—Some Thoughts About Freedom of Contract, coined the phrase "contract of adhesion" to describe a contract between parties of greatly unequal bargaining power, such that the dominant party could impose a "take it or leave it" demand on the weaker party. He argued that in such situations Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century concepts of freedom of contract were unrealistic and should be discarded. He saw such contracts as mocking freedom of contract, making it "a one-sided privilege,” in which the historical evolution of the law from status to contract was reversed--a movement "greatly facilitated by the fact that the belief in freedom of contract has remained one of the firmest axioms in the whole fabric of the social philosophy of our culture. ” Others, among his many articles, were: Natural Law, Justice and Democracy—Some Reflections on Three Types of Thinking About Law and Justice, 19 Tulane L. Rev. 32, 52 (1944) Automobile Dealer Franchises: Vertical Integration by Contract, 66 Yale L. J. 1135 (1957). Contract, Competition, and Vertical Integration, 69 Yale L.J. 1 (1959) Culpa in Contrahendo, Bargaining in Good Faith, and Freedom of Contract: A Comparative Study, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 401 (1964) (with Edith Fine) Generations of students remember with affection his unforgettable classroom style----heavily Socratic but benign. None of them can forget hearing his frequent comment (said with affection) on students' case misanalyses----"Verrghy interghesting! But you couuldn't be wrrhonggair."
dbpprop:reference
rdfs:comment
  • Friedrich Kessler (1901 - 1998) was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School (1935-1938, 1947-1970), University of Chicago Law School, and University of California (Boalt) Law School. He was a contract law scholar, but also wrote of trade regulation law. He was regarded as a member of the American Legal Realism School. He was born in Hechingen, Germany, in 1901 and received his law degree from the University of Berlin in 1928.
rdfs:label
  • Friedrich Kessler
skos:subject
foaf:page
is dbpprop:disambiguates of