claim: A hallmark of consumer contracts is long blocks of capitalized text. Courts and legislators believe that such “all-caps” clauses improve the quality of consumer consent and thus they will often require the capitalization of certain key terms in consumer contracts. Some of the most important terms in consumer contracts—warranty disclaimers, liability releases, arbitration clauses, and automatic subscriptions—will be enforced only because they appeared in all-caps in the contract. This Article...

paper_title: ALL-CAPS

evidence_quote: [p. 1] ALL-CAPS ALL-CAPS YONATHAN A. ARBEL & ANDREW TOLER* Alabama Working Paper Series, 3519630 ABSTRACT A hallmark of consumer contracts is long blocks of capitalized text. Courts and legislators believe that such “all-caps” clauses improve the quality of consumer consent and thus they will often require the capitalization of certain key terms in consumer contracts. Some of the most important terms in consumer contracts—warranty disclaimers, liability releases, arbitration clauses, and automatic subscriptions—will be enforced only because they appeared in all-caps in the contract. This Article is the first to empirically examine the effectiveness of allcaps with respect to the quality of...

citation: Yonathan A. Arbel, ALL-CAPS, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2020).

confidence: machine-linked

limitations: Machine-linked claim. Use the evidence quote and PDF before treating it as a quotation or as a complete statement of the paper's position.


claim: The widespread legal practice of using all-caps in consumer contracts to ensure key terms are conspicuous and consent is improved is deeply flawed. His empirical research demonstrates that all-caps text fails to enhance consumer understanding, provides no benefits for most readers, and significantly harms the comprehension of older individuals. Arbel calls for abandoning this unsubstantiated tradition and exploring more effective disclosure methods.

evidence_quote: [p. 53] 2019] ALL-CAPS [DRAFT] 53 The findings here are relevant to both sides of this debate. The failure of all-caps, the most prominent form of smart disclosure, supports skepticism about the meaning of consent to the fine print. The conspicuousness policy is built on the idea that it is possible to avert or mitigate some of the noreading problem by highlighting key terms. The consumer would read more, it is thought, if reading was made accessible. In practice, however, reading of all-caps seemingly takes longer, the subjective feeling of understanding falls, and recall does not improve over standard print and actually falls for older readers. If a leading form of smart disclosure is...


claim: Courts and legislators mistakenly believe all-caps clauses in consumer contracts enhance consent, often mandating them for enforceability. He asserts this practice is a deeply misguided instance of "contract lore," an ungrounded belief among lawyers, especially problematic given consumers often don't read fine print. Arbel argues that if all-caps doesn't improve consent, or worsens it, courts may be wrongly enforcing harsh terms based on an illusion of understanding, depriving consumers of recourse. This legal tradition lacks empirical support for its effectiveness.

evidence_quote: [p. 56] 56 ALL-CAPS [DRAFT] [VOL. --- VI. CONCLUSION An old anecdote tells of Niels Bohr, the Nobel-winning physicist, whose door was adorned by a horseshoe. When asked by an incredulous guest whether he believed in such superstition, Bohr replied that “I’ve been told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.”148 This study explores the common practice of using all-caps in consumer contracts and finds that the belief in their power borders on the superstitious. Courts and legislators endorse this practice as a means of improving consumer consent, given the lack of attention consumers pay to the fine print. In reality, however, all-caps relies on no empirical support and the evidence...


claim: The "no-reading problem," where consumers' ignorance of fine print allows firms to include oppressive terms, undermines contractual consent. A common solution adopted by courts and legislators, such as the UCC's requirement for conspicuous warranty waivers, is to mandate the prominent display of important terms. This strategy aims to improve consumer consent by signaling the importance of key provisions and making them more accessible, with all-caps being a widely endorsed method to achieve such conspicuousness and thereby enhance enforceability.

evidence_quote: [p. 4] 4 ALL-CAPS [DRAFT] [VOL. --- are deeply problematic, as hidden terms pull the consent rug from under the contracting parties’ feet.5 A common solution to the no-reading problem is to require the conspicuous display of important terms. If consumers do not read the fine print, the solution is to make the print less fine.6 Making text conspicuous is believed to increase the quality of consumer consent by signaling the importance of the underlying text,7 and by making it more accessible.8 Most famously, the UCC requires that warranty waivers “must be by a writing and conspicuous.”9 The UCC is joined by a legion of other statutes, which incentivize the conspicuous display of information...


claim: The legal convention of using all-caps to denote consent lacks empirical support; early psychological studies indicating it impeded reading were overlooked. His new research analyzing 500 popular consumer contracts from highly visited websites like Google and Amazon reveals its pervasiveness, with over 77% containing at least one fully capitalized paragraph and 9% of all words capitalized. This prevalence in contracts affecting most American adults is troubling, as the policy is based on speculation rather than evidence of its actual effectiveness.

evidence_quote: [p. 7] 2019] ALL-CAPS [DRAFT] 7 consent, but this belief is not based on any hard evidence. In fact, the limited evidence that existed when this practice adopted was mostly negative. In particular, psychologists started investigating the effects of different typefaces in the 1930s, and found in a series of studies that it impedes reading speed.18 Admittedly, these studies are limited; partly because they are dated and did not explore legal texts. And partly because the focus on reading speed may have some positive effects, as it may theoretically invite more careful deliberation. Still, that was the best empirical evidence in existence, and legal doctrine overlooked it. The doctrine also...


claim: Experimental Findings: All-Caps Fails to Improve Consent and Harms Older Readers

evidence_span: [p. 1] ALL-CAPS ALL-CAPS YONATHAN A. ARBEL & ANDREW TOLER* Alabama Working Paper Series, 3519630 ABSTRACT A hallmark of consumer contracts is long blocks of capitalized text. Courts and legislators believe that such “all-caps” clauses improve the quality of consumer consent and thus they will often require the capitalization of certain key terms in consumer contracts. Some of the most important terms in consumer contracts—warranty disclaimers, liability releases, arbitration clauses, and automatic subscriptions—will be enforced only because they appeared in all-caps in the contract. This Article is the first to empirically examine the effectiveness of allcaps with respect to the quality of...