Thread: CONTRACTS
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Old 10-19-2004, 06:54 PM
kgod999
 
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CONTRACTS

Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 110 (1979). The Statute of Frauds pri-mary function is to prevent fraud in contracts, which by their very nature have been sub-ject to such wrongdoing. While electronic contracting does not involve a writing or a signature in the classical sense of ink and paper, leading commentators to question whether electronic contracting violates the Statute of Frauds, there is authority that elec-tronic contracts can satisfy it. The requirements of a "writing" and a "signature" can be found although their virtual world counterparts do not, in the traditional sense, exist. The record of the agree-ment will be found either in the computer's memory, or on it's internal storage (hard disk drive or, for longer term storage, tape). Information stored in a com-puter's memory con-stitutes a "writing" where that information is capable of being repro-duced in tangible form such as on a printer. See e.g., Smith v. International Paper Co., 87 F.3d 245 (8th Cir. 1996); Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 877 F. Supp. 690 (D.D.C. 1995); Clyburn v. Allstate Ins. Co., 826 F. Supp. 955 (D.S.C. 1993). Simi-larly, the signa-ture requirement has been found to be met by a long line of cases which argue that any symbol, meant as a signature satisfies the Statute of Frauds. See e.g., Mat-ter of Save-on-Carpets of Arizona, Inc., 545 F.2d 1239 (9th Cir. 1976) (typed name on UCC financing statement); Associated Hardware Supply Co. v. Big Wheel Distrib. Co., 355 F.2d 114 (3d Cir. 1966). Such symbols should include digital signatures or other re-liable computer generated identification techniques.
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