Adhesion Contract

  

Your dog Rover is setting up a partnership with Godzilla. Given their massively different statures in power, adhesion contract rules will likely apply.

That is, as a rule of law, Rover will be protected from Godzilla using his full heft, and that fire-breathing thingy, to bring leverage against Rover in signing this partnership contract, which details the lemonade stand they wish to open together.

In more practical application, insurance companies with massive power over individuals fall under this rubric. It exists via an early 20th century set of laws, which viewed large corporations as unwieldy beasts that had to be controlled, such that they played by basic rules that put the small actor on equal footing with the big. Were these rules not in place, nearly infinite leverage could have been applied by corporate America, virtually stifling the rights of the little guy.

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