Contracts Capsized by COVID-19: A Legal and Jewish Ethical Analysis
Tsuriel Rashi () and
Andrew A. Schwartz ()
Additional contact information
Tsuriel Rashi: Ariel University
Andrew A. Schwartz: University of Colorado
Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 178, issue 2, No 6, 403-413
Abstract:
Abstract Countless contracts have been undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as well as government orders to contain it. Flights have been canceled, concerts have been called off, and dorms have been closed, just to name a few. Do these all count as breaches of contract—or are the parties excused due to the extraordinary circumstances? And how should the losses be allocated between the parties? The law provides one set of answers to these questions; ethics offers another. With a focus on American law (developed over the past two centuries) and Jewish ethics (developed over millennia), this paper shows that the two systems are in accord with some respects and differ in others: Both law and Jewish ethics would excuse a party who cannot complete his contract due to a force beyond his control, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Jewish ethics would require that the excused party still be paid, while American law would not.
Keywords: Contract law; COVID-19; Jewish ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-021-04773-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:178:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-021-04773-9
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04773-9
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman
More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().