Topic: When Does a Contract Attach?
Senator: Feinstein
Date: SEPTEMBER 15, 2005
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FEINSTEIN: Let me just finish this quickly. I'm not a lawyer and I don't really know how to ask this question but let me try.
When is it a contract and when is the law? Because if it's a contract, that affects a whole host of laws that we pass that are very important -- Medicaid, Title IX, No Child Left Behind, even the Internet Protection Act: all of these things.
FEINSTEIN: So when does a contract attach?
ROBERTS: It's always a contract. And sometimes if the intent of Congress is that private parties be allowed to sue, it's more than a contract. But it's always at least a contract.
FEINSTEIN: So the intent has to be a specific intent?
ROBERTS: No, the courts don't require that. They don't require that you specifically say, "You have the right to sue." But the court has to look at it and try to figure out did you intend -- when you put this provision in, did you intend private parties to be able to sue for damages or did you expect the Department of Education to enforce that and have the authority to cut off the funds or to impose other conditions because the university is violating it.
And as I said, some cases come out one way and some cases come out the other way. But in each of those cases, what the court is trying to do is figure out what you, the Congress, meant in that statute.
FEINSTEIN: I think my time is up.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
ROBERTS: Thank you, Senator.
SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
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