Meyer v. Kalanick

JED S. RAKOFF, U.S.D.J.

The American law of contracts in its common law origins presumed a promissory agreement freely negotiated between parties who reached a "meeting of the minds."1 That the agreement eventually became enforceable in a court of law (through the common law action known as "assumpsit") was an essential ingredient in the development of the British and American economies.2

But with the rise of giant corporations selling their products to masses of consumers, this contractual model became largely a figment of imagination, or nostalgia, at least so far as national retail markets…