The freedom of groups like corporations and individuals to enter into contracts bereft of government restrictions is the fundamental basis of freedom of contract. Indeed, such freedom opposes price-fixing, competition law, and minimum wage as forms of government restrictions. This freedom is premised on the doctrine of laissez-faire. The topic of freedom of contract can be tricky since it carries a weighty ideological charge. It involves choosing between government control and individual liberty. Conversely, it can be a choice between free-market capitalism and communitarian consensus. Thus, contractual freedom involves the liberty to choose the terms of whether to contract, with whom and on which contract terms. This doctrine envisages the legal right for people to bind themselves legally. Thus, this is a basic judicial concept that holds that contracts are based upon free choice and mutual agreement.
This paper will seek to demonstrate that indeed, the conception of freedom of contract is rigid and thus highly unrealistic. Based on Kimel’s Neutrality, Autonomy, and Freedom of Contract, this essay will demonstrate justifications fronted in the intervention of the law of contract and its desirability in legal, economic, and social policies. In fact, the application of this law reflects valid and overlapping concerns at times for public wellbeing, individuals, social justice, and vulnerable individuals. This paper will delve into statute law and other relevant cases in order to demonstrate the erosion of this concept during the twentieth century. Lastly, this essay will provide the justifications that culminated in the overt erosion of the concept of contract freedom.
It is clear that this concept presupposes that contracts should not be hindered by external controls like government interference. People are free to design relations through private agreements. A contract involves legally enforceable promises or an assortment of promises, and thus people should be accorded the freedom to chose when, how, and where to contract. The evolution of social structures is based on roles arising from a status based on some contractual freedom. Status systems establish relationships and obligations by birth. On the other hand, contractual freedom presumes that people are equal and free. As elucidated by Robert Nozick and other modern libertarians perceive this concept as a vivid expression of independent decisions by separate individuals in pursuant of their interests under a minimal state.
In the 20th Century, it has become evident that certain contract law’s parts raise contractual freedom issues. Such elements include the rules that oppose excessively liquidated damages or those that block promises enforcement unsupported by a form of consideration limit contracting parties’ freedom. The enforcement of some inconsiderate and callous contract terms has been deemed unconscionable by law courts. Contractual freedom is also limited in labor law, insurance law, products liability, and landlord-tenant law as well as other many doctrinal fields. Questions arise when contracts are signed out of duress or fraud. For instance, when one is forced to sign a contract at gunpoint, this limit contract terms, which create externalities or even affect third parties.
Joseph Lochner was a baker in New York, U.S. He was fined because of limiting state laws that limited the number of hours that employees were to work in 1905. Lochner, in turn, sued the state alleging that he had been denied his ‘due process’ right. He claimed that it was his right to contract with employees freely and thus the state unjustly interfered with this right. The U.S. Supreme Court utilized the clause on due process envisioned by the 14th Amendment in declaring unconstitutional the statute by the state of New York that limited the number of hours that employees could work. The majority ruled that under the provision, states should not deprive any person of liberty, property, or life without the law’s due process. Employees and employers possess the right to freely sell and purchase labor respectively. The 14th Amendment protects this liberty.
