=============================== CFJ 3761 ===============================
A party to the contract in evidence CAN create a gift by some
method.
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Proto-judgement (used up my Motion so want to proto this first)
First, Contracts as subject to R2125 as Players are – It's quite possible
for a contract text to contain an "I say I did", and just because a
contract says a regulated action CAN be done, doesn't mean that the Rules
enable it to do so.
Second, legal texts are not typically read as logical statements – if two
portions of a contract disagree with each other, the clauses are "in
conflict" with each other. This does not automatically result in a
paradox, it simply means that a reasonable process may be applied in an
attempt to resolve the conflict. The question is, can a reasonable
process for contract conflict resolution be inferred from the current
Rules and applied to the contract in question?
It would be perfectly reasonable, on one hand, to suggest that earlier
clauses take precedence over later ones, as a general rule for Agoran
legal texts. This is supported by Rule 1030 – while R1030 clearly only
applies to Agoran Rules, it could be argued that Agorans, when agreeing to
be bound within Agora, assume that legal texts are read similarly.
On the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable to apply R2240, as well, and
give later clauses precedence. After all, a single contract is more like
a "single rule" then a full ruleset; further, in general interpretation of
contracts, "later" amendments often (though not always) take precedence
over earlier ones (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_repeal).
In the future, a judge might decide that one or the other of those options
is a better reading. However, choosing between a forwards and backwards
precedence order doesn't get us out of the broader issue of contract
paradoxes – given that it's possible to write text where the very sentence
structure (within a single clause) is inseparably paradoxical (e.g. "If
this statement is false, then a party CAN do X"), is there a way to
disambiguate straight-up paradoxical statements/conflicts in contracts?
It depends – on the particular enabling rule that enables the particular
type of contract interaction. For currencies, then, it depends on this
part of R2166:
An asset's backing document can generally
specify when and how that asset is created, destroyed, and
transferred.
Here, the operative word is that the contract (as a whole document) is
"specifying" how things can happen. While this isn't as strong a standard
as "unambiguously and clearly specifying" as required for by-announcement
actions (R478), it is still a standard that can be informed by our
practices around announcements (e.g. noting "I say I dids" or requiring
that conditionals in contracts be resolvable with reasonable effort from
available information). For a pertinent example, a Player, in a single
message, announces:
"Disclaimer: this message contains no actions. I do X. Disclaimer: the
first disclaimer is false."
With no explicit manner in the rules to resolve such conflicts between
disclaimers, the whole thing is thrown out as too ambiguous to succeed at
specification (while this makes the first disclaimer true, that is a side-
effect).
Even if we drop "unambiguously and clearly" from the standard for
"specification", sufficient ambiguity in a specification attempt will lead
to it simply being thrown out - while Agora has gone through a degree of
judicial drift (without rules support) in what constitutes "specify", a
foundational judgement is found in CFJ 1307 highlighted that if a
"specification" does not contain or refer to full necessary information,
or contains sufficient ambiguity, it is not (in general) a specification.
Since the specification has to be performed by the backing document as a
whole, if internal clauses conflict in setting out the specification,
without providing a mechanism for conflict resolution – the net effect is
that the clauses fail at specification, and are simply void and without
effect due to ambiguity.
In the current situation, Clause 3 of the contract successfully defines a
currency. By default (if there were no further clauses), the POSSIBLE
currency actions are in R2577, and include destruction and transfer of
currencies by announcement, but not creation. Clauses 4 and 5, taken as a
whole, fail to specify when and how an asset CAN be created, so no
creation is possible (again, that the default agrees with Clause 5 is a
side-effect). Therefore, this CFJ is FALSE.
It's important to emphasize, finally, that this interpretation depends on
the operative phrases in the enabling rule; that is "specify" in R2166.
As a counter-example, R1742 has this clause:
Parties to a contract governed by the rules SHALL act in
accordance with that contract.
In this case, figuring out what is "in accordance with" the contract may
involve giving weight to the various internal conflicts (that's not a
phrase that has seen much CFJ interpretation) – in such a situation, a
future judge may decide between some of the interpretive conflict
resolution methods suggested above (e.g. early versus late clauses have
precedence in general) or may find that some true paradoxes exist.
