Opinion ID: 1369036
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standardized Forms

Text: Aetna's standard form automobile insurance policy is a contract of adhesion. Like the typical personal insurance policy, it [i]s not a contract arrived at by negotiation between the parties. The insured is given no choice regarding terms and conditions of coverage which are contained on forms which the insured seldom sees before purchase of the policy, which often are difficult to understand, and which usually are neither read nor expected to be read by either the person who sells the policy or the person who buys it. Zuckerman v. Transamerica Insurance Co., 133 Ariz. 139, 144, 650 P.2d 441, 446 (1982); accord Darner, 140 Ariz. at 393, 682 P.2d at 398; Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 211 comment b (1979) [6] (party who regularly uses standardized forms does not ordinarily expect customers to understand or even to read standard terms); Mayhew, Reasonable Expectations: Seeking a Principled Application, 13 PEPPERDINE L.REV. 267, 270-71 (1986); Rahdert, Reasonable Expectations Reconsidered, 18 CONN.L.REV. 323, 329 (1986); Slawson, The New Meaning of Contract: The Transformation of Contracts Law by Standard Forms, 46 U.PITT.L.REV. 21, 24-26 (1984); Note, A Common Law Alternative to the Doctrine of Reasonable Expectations in the Construction of Insurance Contracts, 57 N.Y.U.L.REV. 1175 (1982). [7] The adhesive terms generally are self-protective; their major purpose and effect often is to ensure that the drafting party will prevail if a dispute goes to court. Rakoff, Contracts of Adhesion: An Essay in Reconstruction, 96 HARV.L.REV. 1174, 1229, 1237 (1983); see also Rahdert, supra, 18 CONN.L.REV. at 341. Because the typical consumer buying insurance has not assented to the myriad of essentially invisible boilerplate terms in an adhesion contract, special contract rules should apply. Restatement § 211; Mayhew, supra, 13 PEPPERDINE L.REV. at 267; Rakoff, supra; Slawson, supra; Rahdert, supra.