The Blue pencil doctrine is a legal doctrine in common law countries that implies that a court, having recognized one part of the contract as invalid or unenforceable, but the other part is valid, may oblige the parties to follow the terms of the valid part, excluding the invalid part.
The court also has the right to oblige the parties to revise the contract in order to make it feasible.
Content
Etymology of the term
The term comes from the rule that written copies of documents must be edited in blue pencil.
UK law
The existence of the doctrine in the law of the United Kingdom is enshrined in a decision of the House of Lords in 1894 in the case of
Also, this norm is enshrined in the 1979 and in the 1999 [1] .
In other countries
In most countries, courts are not empowered, at their discretion, to edit treaties between parties. The “Blue Pencil Doctrine” gives courts the power both to remove impracticable provisions from contracts, while maintaining feasible, and to revise contracts, including in them the conditions that the parties should, in the opinion of the court, keep in mind [2] .
Notes
- ↑ Statutory Instrument 1994 No. 3159 - The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 , The Stationery Office , March 17, 1993
- ↑ Pivateau, Griffin Toronjo (August 31, 2007), " Putting the Blue Pencil Down: An Argument for Specificity in Noncompete Agreements ", Nebraska Law Review T. 84 (3) , < http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm? abstract_id = 1007599 > . Retrieved May 4, 2009.