Over the course of 15 years, Norma, a retiree on a fixed income, purchased seven different major household appliances on credit from "Easy Eddie's Appliance Store - The Home of Easy Credit." Norma was a day late in paying the final payment on a refrigerator, which was the seventh, and last, appliance she bought from Easy Eddie. Hidden in Easy Eddie's consumer credit contract is a clause that says that if a person is even one day late with any payment, Easy Eddie's has the right to repossess all appliances ever purchased from Easy Eddie's. Eddie filed a lawsuit to enforce this contract clause and sought a court order allowing it to go into Norma's house and confiscate all seven appliances that Norma had purchased from Easy Eddie's over the past 15 years. How do you think Easy Eddie's will

Question

fare in court? Explain.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The general rule of freedom of contract holds that if the object of a contract is lawful and the other elements for the formation of a contract are met, the courts will enforce the contract according to its terms. However, when a contract is so oppressive or manifestly unfair as to be unjust, the law has developed the equity doctrine of unconscionability to prevent the enforcement of such contracts. 
Here, the court will probably find that the contract clause in question is unconscionable: (1) The parties possessed unequal bargaining power, (2) the dominant party unreasonably used its unequal bargaining power to obtain manifestly unfair contract terms, and (3) the adhering party had no reasonable alternative.
As such, the court will probably refuse to enforce the unconscionable.