Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2020

Abstract

A hallmark of consumer contracts is their use of long blocks of capitalized text. These "all-caps" clauses are meant to alert consumers to nonstandard, risky, or important aspects of the transaction that would otherwise be hidden in the fine print. Based on a belief in the power of all-caps, courts will often deny enforcement of many key terms-such as war­ranty disclaimers, liability releases, arbitration clauses, and automatic billing-unless they are presented in all-caps. This article is the first to empirically examine the effectiveness of all-caps. Using an experimental methodology, the article finds that all-caps fail to apprecia­bly improve consent. Moreover, some evidence suggests that all-caps are harmful to older consumers. We collect evidence from standard form agreements used by the largest com­panies in the United States and find that, despite its limitations, three-quarters of con­sumer contracts contain at least one all-caps paragraph. Based on these findings and other evidence reported here, this article lays out the dangers and risks of continued reliance on all-caps and calls for abandoning all-caps.

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