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The BUSKLAW June Newsletter: Forcing Business Behavior Changes Through Buried Contract Provisions: Salesforce and Camping World

As reported by  The Washington Post , business-software giant Salesforce  recently instituted a policy barring its retailer customers from using its technology to sell semi-automatic weapons, including the AR-15 used in numerous mass shootings. One such customer is  Camping World , whose Gander Outdoors division sells many "AR" and other semi-automatic rifles .  Rather than approach Camping World/Gander, a "leading" Salesforce customer, and negotiating the termination of their semi-automatic rifle sales in exchange for some benefit (such as a software discount), Salesforce was tricky. They buried a provision barring the sale of semi-automatic rifles in the acceptable-use policy  ("AUP") binding on Camping World/Gander: Salesforce wants to force Camping World/Gander to make a major change to its business model via an addition to their AUP that is irrelevant to their customer's licensed use of Salesforce software. And although sneaky, I bet tha
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The BUSKLAW Halloween 2022 Post: Stephen King's Asides on Poor Writing in Fairy Tale

  Having just read  Stephen King's Fairy Tale in time for Halloween, it's appropriate to examine his asides on poor writing included in the book. (BTW, Fairy Tale is a good read with King's typical well-executed character development, plot, and a great finish to the story. But you have like the whole Grimm fairy tale genre before you read his take on it.)  Stephen King doesn't tolerate anything less than crisp prose. When the story's hero, Charlie Reade, tries to read a book about the origins of fantasy and its place in the world matrix ("what a mouthful"), he can only scan it because: It was everything I hated about what I thought of as "hoity-toity" academic writing, full of five-dollar words and tortured syntax. Maybe that's intellectual laziness on my part, but maybe not. Later on, Charlie tries to focus on a particular chapter in the "origins of fantasy" book about the story of Jack and the Beanstalk but is put off by "t
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The BUSKLAW April Newsletter: A Force Majeure Clause for the New Millennium

(Author’s Note: I originally wrote this post for Y2K, but I’ve updated it using plain English.  Happy April Fool’s Day 2016!)             A standard force majeure contract clause, where "Acts of God" excuse one party from performing their obligations without that non-performance being a breach of contract, are so 20th Century. So what if fire, flood, hurricane, snowstorm, or riot excuse contractual non-performance. Those events are too mundane to contemplate! Contract lawyers desperately need a force majeure clause for the clear and present dangers of the new(er) millennium! So, as a public service to the legal profession, I’ve assumed the heavy burden of drafting a "new age" force majeure clause for my colleagues to freely use: Either party's non-performance of this agreement will be excused to the extent that it is caused by the occurrence of any of the following events or circumstances: (i) Alien abduction, alien invasion, alien cerebral possession,
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