Surprising Contractual Terms: Concept, Identification Criteria, and Legal Status (Comparative Study of International Instruments, the Common Law, and Iranian Law)

Document Type : Academicm and Research

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Private and Economic Law, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran.

2 PhD Student of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Judicial Sciences and Administrative Services, Tehran, Iran.

10.22091/csiw.2025.12119.2623

Abstract

This article examines the concept, criteria for identifying, and legal status of surprising contractual terms through a comparative study of international instruments, the common law, and Iranian law. It seeks to formulate a clear definition and workable criteria for identifying and establishing such terms and to determine their legal status with respect to validity and binding effect. The study addresses the central questions of how international instruments and common-law judicial practice approach surprising terms and what position Iranian legal doctrine and judicial practice adopt toward them. Based on a comparative analysis of international instruments and an examination of judicial decisions, the article finds that surprising terms are contractual provisions that have not been individually negotiated by the parties and are incorporated into a contract contrary to the reasonable and ordinary expectations of the contracting party. Their content, language, or manner of presentation, including opaque or ambiguous drafting, small print, or placement on the reverse side of a document, may be such that the provision generally escapes the attention of the other contracting party, making its inclusion in the contract surprising to a reasonable person. Accordingly, the party against whom such a term is invoked may sign the contract without being aware of its existence and without a genuine intention to assume an obligation arising from it. The study further demonstrates that international instruments do not regard such terms as effective or binding unless the party seeking to rely on them has taken reasonable steps to draw the other party's attention to them. In Iranian law, the principle that subjective intention prevails over its objective manifestation likewise supports this approach. From an evidentiary perspective, given the particular nature of surprising terms, the party against whom such a term is invoked should not be presumed to have been aware of it; rather, the burden should rest on the party relying on the term to establish that reasonable and customary measures were taken to bring it to the other party's attention. Nevertheless, Iranian judicial practice has not adopted a uniform approach and has, in some cases, upheld such terms without sufficiently addressing their surprising character.

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References

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