Friday Frivolity: Contracts with Animals

Two students stopped me in the stairway to ask whether there can be contracts with animals. “No,” I said. My colleague, Trevor Wedman, pointed out that there are European scholars who think there can be contracts with animals, and I expect that there are American scholars who think so as well. The challenge would be find an animal with the wherewithal to sue for breach of contract or a person with requisite beliefs and the power to enforce such a contract. 

And then, serendipitously, that same day I was listening to Matt Levine on the Money Stuff Podcast, and he started talking about contracts with sheep to trim grass around fields of solar panels. He misspoke, of course. The contracts are between the owners of the solar arrays and the owner of the sheep. But still, it gives me an excuse to share this  fictional imagining of how such a transaction might take place from the first episode of the podcast.

The story begins at about minute 28 of the video below.