3 ms·

> Sure, but if you both sign a legal contract to obey the outcome of the smart contract then no one owes anything, You are begging the question by presupposing

by shkkmo 5y ago

> Sure, but if you both sign a legal contract to obey the outcome of the smart contract then no one owes anything, You are begging the question by presupposing that for every smart contract there could be a possible legal contract that can bind the people who sign it to the results of the smart contract. If a smart contract is illegal, then any written contract that binds people to the results of that contract would be similarly illegal.

jcrawfordor 5y ago
Contracts can be unenforceable for reasons that might not be obvious to people who don't do contract law, as well. For example, the concept of consideration is not especially obvious, that contracts are often not enforceable if both parties do not receive consideration, which leads to things like peppercorn payments. I know about that as a layman but a contract attorney would know of many more non-obvious things that must be checked out to avoid having problems actually enforcing the contract. It seems like it would be very, very easy to produce a smart contract which a court would later determine was not enforceable in the first place, and perhaps order reversal of payments or other things. For one, as a general concept the parties to the contract need to actually understand the terms and courts will somewhat regularly throw a contract out if they think there were implications that were not apparent to one of the parties. Smart contracts seem like absolute minefields for this kind of problem.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Yeah, consulting a lawyer before drawing up an important contract is usually a very good idea for precisely these reasons. You can probably make small adjustments to a boilerplate without doing so, but that always adds atleast a little risk.
crooked-v 5y ago
A very obvious example: in most jurisdictions, a contract signed by a minor can be rendered null and void by that minor (or their legal guardian) at any time.

by shkkmo 5y ago

jcrawfordor 5y ago

Contracts can be unenforceable for reasons that might not be obvious to people who don't do contract law, as well. For example, the concept of consideration is not especially obvious, that contracts are often not enforceable if both parties do not receive consideration, which leads to things like peppercorn payments. I know about that as a layman but a contract attorney would know of many more non-obvious things that must be checked out to avoid having problems actually enforcing the contract. It seems like it would be very, very easy to produce a smart contract which a court would later determine was not enforceable in the first place, and perhaps order reversal of payments or other things. For one, as a general concept the parties to the contract need to actually understand the terms and courts will somewhat regularly throw a contract out if they think there were implications that were not apparent to one of the parties. Smart contracts seem like absolute minefields for this kind of problem.

shkkmo 5y ago
Yeah, consulting a lawyer before drawing up an important contract is usually a very good idea for precisely these reasons. You can probably make small adjustments to a boilerplate without doing so, but that always adds atleast a little risk.

crooked-v 5y ago

A very obvious example: in most jurisdictions, a contract signed by a minor can be rendered null and void by that minor (or their legal guardian) at any time.