Papers by Cathy Lesser Mansfield
South Carolina Law Review, 2000
Nazi Laws: From Democracy to Dictatorship to Genocide
Case Western Reserve law review, 2020
Stanford Law and Policy Review , 2002
Contract law imposes on consumers a "duty to read", shorthand for a set of related doctrines incl... more Contract law imposes on consumers a "duty to read", shorthand for a set of related doctrines including the statute of frauds, the parol evidence rule, and the reasonable reliance element of fraud as a contractual excuse. Moreover, consumer protection statutes have placed heavy emphasis on information disclosure, usually provided on additional documents, as the preferred method to deter abuses in the marketplace. The duty to read and the myriad of disclosure laws rely on unfounded assumptions about the ability of ordinary consumers to read and use written documents.
The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) provides sobering data on the document literacy and quantitative skills of the American public. A surprisingly small percentage of the adult population has the ability to extract key information from lengthy and complex consumer contract documents and disclosure forms. Contracts and disclosures for mortgage loans, automobile leases, and other modern transactions are accessible to fewer than 10% of the consumers for whom they are intended.
The present state of the law, regarding contract formation and enforceability, and the various disclosure statutes, take no account of the literacy problem. New approaches are needed to protect consumers and police the marketplace, using means other than the doctrines of fraud, unconscionability, and technical disclosure statutes, and based on the reality of the gap between adult literacy and the readability of contract forms.
In the mid to late 1990s it became clear that subprime home-secured lending was one of the most i... more In the mid to late 1990s it became clear that subprime home-secured lending was one of the most important public policy issues needing attention from U.S. Policymakers. By then, the number of high-rate, high-cost home-secured loans had exploded, and the consequences of some subprime lending were being felt through record numbers of home foreclosures, victimization of some borrowers through inappropriate lending and lending practices, and concerns over lender liquidity and investor security. The subprime market, which received inadequate attention and intervention, eventually led to the economic crisis of 2008. There were two key federal statutes adopted in the late 1970s and early 1980s that paved the way for the subprime mortgage market. These two statues were The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA), and the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act (AMTPA). DIDMCA, which was adopted in an era of high market rates for conventional mortga...
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Papers by Cathy Lesser Mansfield
The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) provides sobering data on the document literacy and quantitative skills of the American public. A surprisingly small percentage of the adult population has the ability to extract key information from lengthy and complex consumer contract documents and disclosure forms. Contracts and disclosures for mortgage loans, automobile leases, and other modern transactions are accessible to fewer than 10% of the consumers for whom they are intended.
The present state of the law, regarding contract formation and enforceability, and the various disclosure statutes, take no account of the literacy problem. New approaches are needed to protect consumers and police the marketplace, using means other than the doctrines of fraud, unconscionability, and technical disclosure statutes, and based on the reality of the gap between adult literacy and the readability of contract forms.