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American Contract Law for a Global Age, 2017a

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except <strong>for</strong> personal use. If, however, Burge buys his vehicle off the lot at Snyder’s<br />

Used Car Mart, Snyder in that case qualifies as a merchant while Burge does not.<br />

Taking the facts one step further, suppose that Burge is actually a used car buyer <strong>for</strong><br />

the local auto auction. In that case, the sale occurred “between merchants” because<br />

both sides both sides of the car sale qualify as merchants. UCC § 2-104 defines the<br />

term “merchant” in subsection (1), while subsection (3) describes when a transaction<br />

is “between merchants.” Both concepts will show up in the cases in this unit, so you<br />

would do well to examine UCC § 2-104 briefly be<strong>for</strong>e continuing.<br />

In this unit, we will see two of the instances where merchant status matters<br />

under Article 2. The first is the creation of a warranty that goods sold by a merchant<br />

are of a certain quality, a warranty known as the “implied warranty of<br />

merchantability,” contained in UCC § 2-314. A second place where merchants make<br />

an appearance in this unit is in section 2-207, the other major topic in this unit.<br />

Shattering the Mirror Image Rule. Section 2-207, it is fair to say, changes<br />

everything that you think you know (and we just taught you) about the mirror-image<br />

rule under the common-law of contracts. Indeed, one could fairly say that section 2-<br />

207 smashes the mirror into thousands of shards capable of bloodying the hands that<br />

touch them. Section 2-207 was drafted to deal with a real problem under the common<br />

law. Because the mirror-image rule requires that contracting parties agree to the<br />

exact same terms in order to <strong>for</strong>m a contract, the last party to propose terms be<strong>for</strong>e<br />

per<strong>for</strong>mance of the contract always controlled the terms of the deal. Because the last<br />

party gets the upper hand in dictating contract terms in this situation, this mirrorimage<br />

requirement is also frequently referred to as the “last shot rule.” While that<br />

was not necessarily a fair way to select among conflicting terms on which parties did<br />

not agree, it at least has the virtue of being simple. Section 2-207, as you will see,<br />

replaces mirror-image offer and acceptance with a regime where non-identical<br />

responses to an offer are treated as acceptance of the offer, along with proposals to<br />

modify the contract. At common law, of course, a non-identical acceptance would be<br />

treated as a counter-offer. Section 2-207 has proved to be one of the most controversial<br />

contract-law innovations in UCC Article 2, as well as one of the more challenging<br />

concepts <strong>for</strong> students to understand.<br />

As in the previous unit, we have edited citations to the Uni<strong>for</strong>m Commercial<br />

Code in the cases that follow so that they will refer you to the “Official” version of the<br />

UCC found in many statutory supplements (or in online databases, including the freeaccess<br />

Legal In<strong>for</strong>mation Institute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc). We believe you<br />

will find it helpful to see the statute separately, even where courts provide you with<br />

a lengthy quotation. Doing so will enable you to see the larger context in which<br />

particular sections of the code operate.<br />

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196 CHAPTER IV: ALTERNATIVE REGIMES

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