Exam 1
1. Which of the following has the law and economics movement influenced in judicial opinion?
Homicide statutes
Education
Antitrust law
Discrimination policies
2. Contracts sometimes contain a provision reciting that disputes between the parties regarding
matters connected with the contract must be litigated in the courts of a particular state.
What is such a provision called?
Forum selection clause
Minimum contacts clause
Substantive clause
Choice of law clause
3. Which of the following is true of the Contract Clause?
It imposes tougher standards on government contracts than on private contracts.
It has gradually increased in importance from the 19th century to the 20th century.
It does not apply to government contracts.
It applies to laws that impair contracts made after the law’s passage.
4. Sociological jurisprudence has a tendency to say that, when interpreting and applying the law,
courts should pay attention to changing social values and let the law reflect those new values.
How is this different from the natural law approach, which also talks about values?
• Natural Law:
o Natural law takes issue with legal positivism by rejecting the positivist separation of law and
morality
o Natural law adherents usually content that some higher law or set of universal moral rules
binds all human beings in all times and places.
o Unjust positive laws then are not valid law under the natural law view.
• An “unjust” law’s supposed invalidity doesn’t translate into natural law defense that is
recognized in court.
o Judges may sometimes take natural law-oriented views into account when interpreting the
law as compared with positivist judges, judges influenced by natural laws ideas may be more
likely to read constitutional provisions broadly in order to strike down positive laws they
regard as unjust. They may also be more likely to let morality influence their interpretation of
the law.
o Neither judges nor natural law thinkers always agree what is moral and immoral.
• This legal difficulty allows legal positivists to claim that only by keeping legal and moral
questions separate can we obtain stability and predictability in the law.
• Sociological Jurisprudence:
o Sociological Jurisprudence is a general label uniting several different approaches that
examine law within its social context
• Law is a process of social ordering reflecting society’s’ dominant interests and values.
o Different Sociological Approaches:
• Examining examples of sociological legal thinking, we can add substance.
▪ “Dominant interests” detailed and changing catalog of social interests that press
on govt and the legal system and shapes the positive law
▪ Dominant values: Reflection of the collective spirit of a particular society
▪ Two different “processes of social ordering”
• Positive law
• Living law: informal social controls such as customs, family ties, and
business practices
The Natural law is content with the idea of the universal moral rules that bind all human beings
while the sociological jurisprudence focuses on society’s dominant interests and values.
While similar, the difference between the two levels of thinking is that natural law judges will take
into consideration constitutional provisions whereas sociological legal thinkers will process and
reflect what the collective thinkers view on current subject matters and allow that to influence their
