This article explores the prevalence of unenforceable and misleading terms in residential rental contracts. For this purpose, the study analyzes a sample of seventy residential leases from the Greater Boston Area in terms of Massachusetts Landlord and Tenant Law. The article’s findings reveal that landlords often use deceptive—as well as clearly invalid—provisions in their contracts, and regularly fail to disclose the vast majority of the mandatory rights and remedies that the law bestows upon tenants in their leases. Building on psychological insights and on survey evidence, the article suggests that this drafting pattern may significantly affect tenants’ decisions and behavior. In particular, when a problem or a dispute with the landlord arises, tenants are likely to perceive the terms in their lease agreements as enforceable and binding, and consequently forgo valid legal rights and claims. Therefore, the article expects that such clauses will persist as long as monitoring and enforcement mechanisms do not sufficiently deter landlords from using such terms in their contracts. In light of this evidence, the article discusses preliminary policy prescriptions. * Law School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Email: mfurth@sjd.law.harvard.edu * Terence M. Considine Fellow at the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business, Research Fellow at the Program on the Foundations of Private Law and the Program on Negotiation, and S.J.D. candidate, Harvard Law School. I am deeply indebted to Oren Bar-Gill, Steve Shavell, and Eyal Zamir for multiple conversations and invaluable advice. Thoughtful suggestions and comments were provided by Jonathan Arbel, Netta Barak-Corren, Alma Cohen, Richard Craswell, Barbara Fried, Dave Hoffman, Louis Kaplow, Kobi Kastiel, Yaniv Lushinsky, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, Zvi Matzkin, Ariel Porat, Henry Smith, Cass R. Sunstein, Aluma Zernik, an anonymous referee, and the participants in the Law and Economics Seminar at Harvard Law School, the Private Law Workshop at Harvard Law School, the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Law and Economics Association (ALEA 2016), the 10th Annual Conference of Empirical Legal Studies (CELS 2015), the third conference of the Stanford Program on Law and Society, the 20th Annual Conference of the Society for Institutional & Organizational Economics (SIOE 2016) and the Doctoral Students Workshop at the Hebrew University Law School. I also thank Jennifer Allison and Arevik Avedian for helpful support with the research and statistical analysis. Generous financial support was provided by Harvard Law School’s John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business and the Harvard Law School’s Program on the Foundations of Private Law. An earlier version of this article was awarded the Harvard Law School’s John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business at Harvard Law School. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com doi:10.1093/jla/lax002 1 . I N T R O D U C T I O N Standard form contracts have become omnipresent in our daily lives. A particularly common concern among scholars, regulators, and courts is that such contracts (which consumers often sign without reading) regularly contain onesided terms (e.g., Kessler 1943; Rakoff 1984; Gillette 2005; Marotta-Wurgler 2008; Ben-Shahar 2010; Radin 2013) or terms that, although enforceable, exploit consumers’ cognitive biases (e.g., Korobkin 2003; Bar-Gill 2012). Yet, little consideration has been given to the possibility that consumer contracts include unenforceable terms or misinformation about consumers’ legal rights. The paucity of research on this issue is puzzling in light of the potential impact of such a practice on consumers. Although unenforceable terms might not be salient to consumers during their purchasing decisions, they are likely to affect their perceptions of the law—and consequently their behavior—after making the purchase, when a problem emerges or when seeking to ascertain their rights and remedies as buyers. At this point in time, given that consumers are typically uninformed about the rules mandating their relationships with sellers, they are likely to rely on their contracts for determining their rights and obligations as buyers. If these contracts contain unenforceable clauses that deny (or restrict) their mandatory rights and remedies, or misleading terms that misinform them about the legal state of affairs, uninformed consumers are likely to (mis)perceive such terms as enforceable and binding, and consequently relinquish valid legal rights and claims. A profit-maximizing seller may realize that she can leverage her superior acquaintance with the law to her advantage, by drafting contracts that are likely to affect consumers’ perceptions of their legal rights, and subsequently their decisions, resulting in profit to the seller. Yet, importantly, sellers might also simply lack the incentive to ensure that their contracts comply with the regulatory requirements. Put differently, sellers might use legally invalid terms—not necessarily with the intention of extorting profit, but rather because they are simply uninformed about the applicable law themselves. Whether the use of unenforceable terms is intentional or inadvertent, it is likely to adversely affect consumers, shaping their decisions and behavior in 1 For example, consumers might refrain from filing meritorious suits if their contracts include invalid disclaimers of tort liability or invalid choice of law or choice of forum clauses. See, e.g., Stolle & Slain (1997), Wilkinson-Ryan (2017). 2 This possibility is consistent with the many examples in the literature of sellers knowingly exploiting consumers’ misperceptions, through advertising, marketing, and design techniques (Hanson & Kysar 1999; Grubb 2009; Heidues & Koszegi 2010; Spiegler 2011; Bar-Gill 2012; Zamir 2014, pp. 55–66). 2 ~ Furth-Matzkin: Unenforceable and Misleading Terms in Residential Rental Contracts

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关于不可执行的合同条款的意外使用：来自住宅租赁市场的证据

本文探讨了住宅租赁合同中不可执行且具有误导性的条款的普遍性。为此，该研究根据马萨诸塞州房东和租户法对大波士顿地区的70个住宅租赁进行了分析。文章的调查结果表明，房东经常在合同中使用欺骗性的条款，而且显然是无效的条款，并且经常无法披露法律在租约中赋予租户的绝大多数强制性权利和补救措施。文章基于心理见解和调查证据，认为这种起草方式可能会严重影响租户的决定和行为。特别是，当与房东发生问题或纠纷时，租户可能会认为其租赁协议中的条款具有可执行性和约束力，因此放弃有效的合法权利和主张。因此，该文章期望只要监督和执行机制不能充分阻止房东在其合同中使用此类条款，此类条款将继续存在。根据这一证据，本文讨论了初步的政策规定。*哈佛大学法学院，美国马萨诸塞州剑桥。电子邮件：mfurth@sjd.law.harvard.edu * John M. Olin法律，经济和商业中心的Terence M. Considine研究员，私法基础计划和谈判计划以及SJD研究员哈佛法学院候选人。我非常感谢Oren Bar-Gill，Steve Shavell和Eyal Zamir进行的多次对话和宝贵建议。Netta Barak-Corren的Jonathan Arbel提供了周到的建议和评论，Alma Cohen，Richard Craswell，Barbara Fried，Dave Hoffman，Louis Kaplow，Kobi Kastiel，Yaniv Lushinsky，Florencia Marotta-Wurgler，Zvi Matzkin，Ariel Porat，Henry Smith，Cass R.Sunstein，Aluma Zernik，一名匿名裁判和参与者在哈佛法学院的法律与经济学研讨会，哈佛法学院的私法研讨会，美国法律与经济学协会第26届年会（ALEA 2016），第十届经验法学研究年度会议（CELS 2015），斯坦福大学法律与社会计划第三次会议，制度与组织经济学协会第20届年会（SIOE 2016）和希伯来大学法学院的博士生研讨会。我还要感谢Jennifer Allison和Arevik Avedian在研究和统计分析方面的有益支持。哈佛法学院的约翰·奥林法律，经济与商业中心和哈佛法学院的私法基础计划提供了慷慨的财政支持。本文的较早版本被授予哈佛法学院约翰·奥林法律和经济学奖。作者2017。由牛津大学出版社代表哈佛法学院约翰·奥林法律，经济和商业中心出版。这是根据知识共享署名非商业许可（http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/）的条款分发的开放访问文章，该文章允许非商业性重用，分发和在适当引用原始作品的情况下，可以以任何媒体进行复制。对于商业重用，请联系journals.permissions@oup.com doi：10.1093 / jla / lax002 1。简介标准表格合同已在我们的日常生活中无处不在。学者，监管机构和法院特别关注的一个问题是，此类合同（消费者经常不经阅读就签署）通常包含附带条款（例如，Kessler 1943； Rakoff 1984； Gillette 2005； Marotta-Wurgler 2008； Ben-Shahar 2010； Radin （2013年）或可以强制执行但利用了消费者的认知偏见的术语（例如，Korobkin 2003； Bar-Gill 2012）。但是，很少考虑到消费者合同中包含不可执行的条款或有关消费者合法权利的错误信息的可能性。鉴于这种做法对消费者的潜在影响，对此问题的研究很少。尽管无法执行的条款可能对消费者在购买决定中并不重要，他们可能会在购买后，出现问题时或试图确定其作为购买者的权利和补救措施时，影响他们对法律的理解，进而影响他们的行为。在这个时间点上，鉴于消费者通常不了解规定与卖方的关系的规则，因此他们很可能依赖于合同来确定其作为买方的权利和义务。如果这些合同包含无法执行的条款，这些条款拒绝（或限制）其强制性权利和补救措施，或者误导性条款误导了他们关于法律事务状况的信息，则未知情的消费者很可能（误）认为此类条款具有可执行性和约束力，因此放弃有效的合法权利和主张。利润最大化的卖方可能会意识到，她可以通过起草可能影响消费者对其合法权利以及随后的决定的看法的合同来利用自己对法律的熟识来牟利，从而为卖方带来利润。但是，重要的是，卖方也可能只是缺乏动力来确保其合同符合监管要求。换句话说，卖方可能使用法律上无效的条款-不一定是为了勒索利润，而是因为他们只是不了解适用法律本身。无论是故意使用还是无意使用术语，都可能会对消费者产生不利影响，从而在1中改变他们的决策和行为。例如，如果消费者的合同中包含无效的侵权责任免责声明或无效的法律选择或法院条款的选择，则消费者可能不提起立功诉讼。参见，例如，Stolle＆Slain（1997），Wilkinson-Ryan（2017）。2这种可能性与卖家文献中通过广告，市场营销和设计技巧故意利用消费者的误解的许多例子相符（Hanson＆Kysar 1999； Grubb 2009； Heidues＆Koszegi 2010； Spiegler 2011； Bar-Gill 2012； Mr。 Zamir 2014，第55-66页）。2〜Furth-Matzkin：住宅租赁合同中无法执行且具有误导性的条款 2这种可能性与卖家文献中通过广告，市场营销和设计技巧故意利用消费者的误解的许多例子相符（Hanson＆Kysar 1999； Grubb 2009； Heidues＆Koszegi 2010； Spiegler 2011； Bar-Gill 2012； Mr。 Zamir 2014，第55-66页）。2〜Furth-Matzkin：住宅租赁合同中无法执行且具有误导性的条款 2这种可能性与卖家文献中通过广告，市场营销和设计技巧故意利用消费者的误解的许多例子相符（Hanson＆Kysar 1999； Grubb 2009； Heidues＆Koszegi 2010； Spiegler 2011； Bar-Gill 2012； Mr。 Zamir 2014，第55-66页）。2〜Furth-Matzkin：住宅租赁合同中无法执行且具有误导性的条款