1.4.3 The Contractarian Worldview

Both the Uniform Trust Code and the revised Uniform Partnership Act reflect the doctrinal force of the contractarian worldview. The Uniform Trust Code, however, is largely a codification of the long-standing common law trust principles framed by the contractarian rhetoric.[1]The Revised Uniform Partnership Act essentially trades-in the long-standing partnership law fiduciary principles for a pure contractual model. How “good faith” is used, and what it means, under the two uniform acts puts in high relief the stakes involved in shifting from a relational to a contractarian model. Indeed, the developing case law under the Revised Partnership Act should serve as a cautionary tale for those concerned with the future of the law of trusts.

_{[1] “The U.T.C. does not make sweeping changes in the common law of trusts, but neither does it woodenly copy the previous judge-made law.” David M. English, “The Uniform Trust Code (2000): Significant Provisions and Policy Issues,” 67 Mo. L. Rev. 143, 153 (2002).}