11 ms·

How is "surprising" defined and who decides? Can this be abused sonehow?

• el_dev_hell 4y ago
  Usually by the Reasonable Person Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person. It can be pretty subjective, but it often gets clarified with enough common law precedent (which can be amended with a new law if it becomes abused/unfair/odd).
  • NoboruWataya 4y ago
    The top level comment is talking about Germany, which is not a common law jurisdiction.
    • johannes1234321 4y ago
      Precedent by other court decisions is still relevant for law interpretation in Germany. BVG and BGH decisions are law-like. With a somewhat good argument any court decision can become a good template for a case. The opposite is also interesting to observe: In common law countries the written law also becomes more and more fine grained limiting jurisdical law making.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  The law does contain a bit more specific definitions but not much, it's very much open to interpretation, but that's what judges are for. It does create uncertainty, and sometimes clauses get declared invalid years later and customers get bitten by statutes of limitations if they didn't sue themselves, but these cases are also really expensive for the companies so it's in their interest to not get too creative. In practice, it seems to work really well. I'm always astonished how much more on edge I have to be in other countries when agreeing to anything. In Germany, most of the "legal scams" (e.g. subscriptions hidden in fine print) don't exist, or are really easy to get out of.