Q27

[b.lin.22.13]

Is A wrong because it refers to court-ordered compensation, which implies a monetary settlement, vs. employment/labor enforcement?

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Strengthen/Weaken

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
Lines 34-54, but specifically 48-54.

Any prephrase?
The author's position is that money is better than specific employment, when it comes to employment contract cases, because forcing someone to work for someone else would create a tense, hostile work environment. We could strengthen this position by corroborating that forced labor leads to crappy situations (or by ruling out some potential objection, for example, "What is the wronged party gets no relief from money ... and ONLY gets relief from specific performance?")

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:

(A) We don't care about whether it can/can't be enforced. We only care about whether money is/isn't better than specific performance. This would also weaken the author's position. The author was insinuating that specific performance was hard to enforce. If MONEY is often nearly impossible to enforce, that makes money seem like a WORSE option.

(B) This weakens, in the sense that it says, "So WHAT if it's forced labor … ALL remedies involve coercion."

(C) This does help, as someone might have objected "If someone doesn't have money to pay the wronged party, then for THEM specific performance is definitely better than money." This answer goes against that. The author said "Where possible, we should go with money instead of specific performance". This answer makes it seem like we would usually have the option of money.

(D) We don't care about anything OTHER THAN employment contract cases.

(E) Nothing in the passage discussed the rights of potential employees. The author isn't saying "avoid coerced employment because it invalidates the rights of employees"; he's saying "avoid coerced employment because that way the court can steer clear of entanglement in the troublesome aspects of the feud".

Takeaway/Pattern: Not my favorite correct answer, since the author hedged her wording to imply that her position only applied to cases "where [it's] possible" for the contract breaker to pay the wronged party. (C) seems to really strengthen the author's position in lines 11-12, that "there are many cases in which money is better".

#officialexplanation

[DarienS566]

I chose (C) but how is it not just a premise booster? It doesn't feel like new information since it seems to already be stated by the author when he/she says in line 27 "..in MANY cases monetary payment can adequately compensate for the refusal to fulfill the terms of a contract and thus the court does not need to consider ordering Specific Performance"

Doesn't "many" = most?

[RamseyM415]

I could use some clarification on (C).

The way I read P3 and the author's argument is that the argument is conditional upon monetary compensation being possible; therefore, I don't see how adding in that "monetary compensation is usually possible" strengthens the argument.

I'm looking especially at the following lines: "Even if a court had the resources necessary to ensure that such a contract would be enforced according to its terms, it would often do better to avoid imposing such uncomfortable conditions. Awarding monetary compensation where possible in such cases permits the court to steer clear..."

Help??? Thanks!