Deliberately incomplete contracts force ongoing negotiation that courts cannot provide

Evidence

In the subcontracting cases in question, agreements are never written. The only written document is the order form. Certainly there is no effort to engage in comprehensive planning. The initial agreement is a reference point, the gaps in planning being intentional, and it is understood that adaptations will have to be made if the relation is to continue. This incompleteness of contracts is one of the reasons (though not the only one) why, to my knowledge, there is no use of the courts to resolve disputes. It requires both subcontractor and client to engage in an ongoing process of discussion in order to resolve misunderstandings and ambiguities and arrive at acceptable terms. The court system is simply not designed to provide these services is Given the possibility of opportunistic behaviour, trust is an essential ingredient in intermediate product subcontracting in so far as the two firms are locked into the relation. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2526

Categorization

• XREF: The recurring-dialogue governance of incomplete contracts parallels how the doctor’s wife in Blindness must hold private micro-negotiations to keep order — observability and ongoing adjustment substitute for formal enforcement. — connects to: Contracts are collaborative social processes for confronting an unknowable future, not fixed plans. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1051; Case negotiations occur in the shadow of the law set by trial outcomes; Informal negotiation is the default first step in administrative dispute resolution — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1459 (+2 more)