Comment by Hermitian909
5 years ago
I don't have the references at hand, but I've seen a few rulings now for smart contract disputes along the lines of: "The contract is legal in and of itself, and part of the contract is to be bound to whatever decisions the code makes so long as that decision is itself legal."
The status quo now is that if I have a contract dispute with a big corporation I'm probably SOL as they will bury me under lawyers. But if I can get a summary judgment saying "hey, the code says he's right, pay up BigCo." Suddenly the courts are a lot more accessible to me.
Not saying this will be a net win for the little man (automation usually isn't) but there may be some benefits, which is interesting.
it has to chain back to reality eventually though.
the courts have had to rule over whether action figures are toys or dolls, because those had different tariffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz,_Inc._v._United_States
you can make an incredibly verbose smart contract but lawyers will weasel about the inputs like this.
Sure, I don't think my post disagrees with that. You're discussing regulation. I only referred to a very particular type of legal case: a contract dispute between two private parties wherein the contract is legally valid and the parties have agreed to abide by the determination of the program.
Not all law will be like this, it's too complicated, but some of it might be and that's interesting.