Maybe Dick Speidel Was Right About Court Adjustment

I will argue that Dick Speidel may have been correct in asserting that court adjustment makes sense in limited circumstances. But years ago, I allied myself with Speidel and I will only briefly review my reasons here. My main goal in this Article is to argue that nothing courts have decided or writers have analyzed since Aluminum Co. of America v. Essex Group, Ins (ALCOA), a somewhat infamous case in which the court adjusted a long-term contract, proves that court adjustment is always wrongheaded. In fact, as with so many policy issues, we may never identify the best judicial approach to disrupted long-term contract because resolution depends on too many variables and unknowns.

So Speidel may have been right. Of course, he may have also been wrong. I will focus on recent literature and cases to enumerate the unresolved questions about court adjustments. Part II briefly reviews Speidel's approach to court adjustment.

Part III outlines the judicial and scholarly reaction to court adjustment, focusing on more recent treatments. Part IV claims that too many questions remain unanswered to know whether Speidel was right or wrong.