Teaching Webster v. Blue Ship Tea Room

In a previous post, I shared a way to illustrate the differences between certain types of chicken for the frequently-used ambiguity case, Frigaliment.  For today’s random teaching tip, I am leaving chicken behind and moving on to fish.  Because I have the luxury of a six-credit Contracts course, I have time to cover warranties, both express and implied, for sales of goods.  The case I use to teach the implied warranty of merchantability, Webster v. Blue Ship Tea Room, involves fish chowder.  The primary issue is whether a fish bone in a cup of New England fish chowder sold to Ms. Webster at the Blue Ship Tea Room resulted in a breach of the implied warranty of merchantability.  The court answered, “no,” but not before going into the details of the way chowder is made in New England.  After I call on a student to share the facts of the case, I say that I’ve unearthed this clip showing exactly how the fish chowder was made (start at 0:17):  

I also encourage students to craft their own limericks for cases–just as our own Prof. Telman has done.  The latest student limerick submitted was for Webster.  Kudos to student Sareena Beasley for this one:

Whenit’s known that there’sbones in the flounder

And to those who say that Contracts is the driest 1L class, I say,”puh-shaw!”

[Heidi R. Anderson]