LAW 309- Yale Law Journal

An Introduction to Principles and Policies Lawyers are not especially concerned, in the arguments they make or the explanations they give, to distinguish principles from policies. 1 This is true of all branches of the profession, the judicial and academic, as well as the practicing bar. And it is unfortunate, for we can learn something about adjudication, perhaps more than a little, by attending to the distinction. Consider two cases, the first deceptively simple. The beneficiary of a life insurance policy murders the insured in order to collect the insurance. He is caught, convicted of homicide, and in a separate proceeding denied payment. In the process a rule is announced by the court that a beneficiary who intentionally takes the life of the insured may not collect the insurance.2 The second case is more complex. A buyer, licensed by the secretary of agriculture, purchases a carload of cantaloupes warranted to be "U.S. gTade one." The terms of his contract ("acceptance final") preclude the buyer from rejecting the produce. Yet, he rejects because the cantaloupes do not conform to the warranty. Not only is the buyer held liable for his breach, but he is also deprived of his claim against the seller. The rule, as stated by the court, is that under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, a buyer who improperly rejects a shipment forfeits any cause of action for breach of warranty (growing out of the same transaction) that he might have against the seller.3 In each of these cases two types of explanations for the announced rule can be attempted. The rule in the insurance case might be explained on instrumental grounds: It is designed to deter the intentional taking of life. The instrumental, to the contrary, might be ignored and the explanation given that it is improper for the beneficiary to collect the insurance since a wrongdoer should not profit from his own wrong. There is, of course, nothing necessarily incompatible in these two explanations. Indeed, both might well be advanced by judge or commentator as joint reasons for the rule.