Contract law and inequality - A response to Frank Carrigan

Abstract

Frank Carrigan argues that the legalistic judging of Sir Owen Dixon is a trivial matter because it merely reproduces and reinforces the substantive inequality between persons in our society. I agree that inequality in our society is real and needs to be addressed. However, given the limitations of judges and the institutional limitations of the courts, contract law is a poor vehicle for overcoming such inequality when compared to the many social, economic and political policy options open to governments. Not only, however, is contract law a misconceived tool for the amelioration of poverty; to use it in this way runs the real risk of destroying one of its most significant attributes—the formal equality enshrined in the common law of contract.