Preface

• Author: John D. McCamus
• Pages: 23-25

xxiii

PR EFAC E

As a number of colleagues and fr iends have gently reminded me, many

years have passed since the publication of the second edition of this

text in 2012. The work of preparing this edition has thus required an

extensive engagement with a substantial body of jurispr udence; princi-

pally, the recent Canadian decisions on the common law of contracts.

Although the structure and pr incipal features of contract law in t he

common law world have been well established and recogni zed for much

of the past two centuries, t he doctrines of contract law continue to

evolve and adjust to their contemporary surroundings. The past eight

years have brought about much signif‌icant change. Perhaps the most

striking, from a Ca nadian perspective, has been the recognit ion by the

Supreme Court of Canada in Bhasin v Hrynew1 of an underly ing general

principle of good-faith contractual perform ance as the theoretical justi-

f‌ication for a number of pre-existing rule s of contract law and as a well-

spring for recent and possibly future recogn ition of new rules requiri ng

good-faith conduct. The Supreme Court of Canada has also provided

guidance in recent years on such m atters as the law of rectif‌ication, pro-

prietary estoppel, a nd issues of contractual i nterpretation. Most recently,

the Court has offered a transformative discu ssion of the doctrine of

unconsci onability in Uber Technologies Inc v Hel le r. 2 Although t his deci-

sion was released after the text for this edition had gone to press, the

publisher kindly agreed to incorporate last-minute revisions to Chap-

ter 11 to include a discussion of thi s important decision.

In addition to Supreme Court of Canada juris prudence, of course,

this edition attempts to incor porate decisions of Canadian lower courts

1 2014 SCC 71.

2 2020 SCC 16.