It was 150 years ago that the mill shaft at the City Flour Mills in Gloucester broke, an event that gave rise to one of the most influential, enduring, and controversial contract law decisions of all time: Hadley v. Baxendale. Hadley is important not only because of its rule, which limits consequential damages for breach of contract, but because it marked the centralization and modernization of traditional English contract law in light of the Industrial Revolution, and because it spread through the common law world-wide.

The year 2004 marks not only the case's sesquicentennial, but the redevelopment of Hadley's old mill as a modern mixed-use commercial/residential facility as part of Gloucester's redevelopment of its historic downtown. The anniversary of the case and the redevelopment of Gloucester give us an opportunity to meet at Hadley's Mill to reflect on the case it spawned and on the past, present and future of contract and common law worldwide.

The Conference will focus not only on Hadley but on the larger role of the common law, particularly of contracts, in dealing with rapid changes in commerce and society, not merely in England, but worldwide. No case better exemplifies the rapid spread of English common law and its role in developing the background rules of a fast-developing international commercial system than Hadley. There are remarkable parallels between the era of Hadley and our own, as modern courts in a world of fragmentation of power and an exponential increase in e-commerce face 21st century economic, social, and political revolutions as dramatic as those of the Industrial Revolution in 1854. The common law that England exported is, of course, dominant in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but it also plays an important but different role in Africa, Asia, the West Indies and the Middle East, where it has been amalgamated with tribal and other indigenous law as well as Islamic, Hindu, Jewish and other developed legal systems.

Today, former British colonies are celebrating silver and golden anniversaries as independent nations, and many are striving for democracy in competition with severe economic and social pressures. Their legal systems have to deal with transnational and electronic law at the same time as they integrate secular nationalism and religious fundamentalism. How have common law courts, whether largely traditional or complexly hybrid, dealt with these changes? How are they to deal with them today? Can they craft rules suitable to the new realities of the 21st century? If so, what should those rules be, and what kind of legal structure should be used to produce them? Papers dealing with these and related issues from doctrinal, theoretical, or historical perspectives are all welcome. While the Conference is primarily focused on the legal aspects, submissions from scholars in related disciplines are also encouraged.

Among the topics that might be considered are the similarities and differences among the more traditional, "first world" common law courts, the impact of the common law on third world legal systems and the role of the common law world-wide in times of rapid and fundamental economic and social change. Deadline for submission of abstracts for the Conference is February 15, 2004.
E-mail submissions are welcome. Please send proposals to:

Prof. Frank Snyder
Texas Wesleyan University School of Law Center
1515 Commerce Street Fort Worth, Texas 76102
email: fsnyder@law.txwes.edu.

Prof. Peter Linzer
University of Houston Law Center
100 Law Center
Houston, Texas 77204
email: plinzer@uh.edu