Terry’s law

A vital part of pragmatic jurisprudence, neatly captured by the Latin maxim.

A chef getting away with what the eye don’t see, yesterday.

A hearty collection of the JC’s pithiest adages.

Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Maxim

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quod oculo non videt coquus non est culpandum

Covenants, representations or warranties in two flavours:

Those by which you expect counterparties to promptly advise you of their breach of contract to you
Those the breach of which you cannot realistically expect to ever find out about, unless the counterparty owns up to them.

To take another example which hails from the world of contract negotiation and is as good a practical justification for plain English as anything. Generalities hide a multitude of ostensibly odious particularities. Let us say your opposing legal eagle has, in his repertoire, an automatic, reflexive aversion to the idea that ones affiliates may somehow be involved in your provision of contractual services, notwithstanding the obvious truth that, in a world of international finance across borders whose perimeters are petulantly defended by parochial authorities requiring local fealty, the involvement of your local affiliates follows and certainly as night does day. Be that as it may this fellow object to it, and will rail against it with all his might if given the opportunity.^[1]

So don’t give him the opportunity. You have a choice whether to buy yourself this argument. If you say, for example, “the Service Provider shall be entitled to pass information to those of its employees, agents or affiliates, and for the avoidance of doubt any employees or agents of any such affiliate, to the extent such employee, agent or affiliate, or employee or agent of such affiliate, requires it in order to provide the Services hereunder” you may rest assured that your learned friend will take up the cudgels you have so kindly offered him. Prudence would recommend you cancel any plans you may have made for dinner with your spouse any time in the next fortnight, while the two of you nut this out.

If on the other hand, if you say “we may share your details within our organisation on a “need-to-know” basis only to progress the Project” there is a level chance that it won’t even occur to your correspondent that your “organisation” might have affiliates, much less that you meant to include them. What the eye don’t see the chef gets away with.

There is a dark inversion of this in the performance appraisal: What the Man don’t see, you don’t get no credit for. Hence, SMART goals, that bane of modern existence.

Terry’s law

See also