The blue pencil doctrine is a legal concept in common law countries in which a court finds that portions of a contract are void or unenforceable but that other portions of the contract are enforceable. The blue pencil rule allows the legally valid, enforceable provisions of the contract to stand despite the nullification of the legally void, unenforceable provisions. The name evokes the editor's pencil striking out the offending words while the rest of the text is left in place. The revised version, however, must still represent the original meaning of the contract. The rule may not be invoked, for example, to delete the word not and thereby change a negative into a positive, because that would rewrite the agreement rather than merely remove its invalid parts.
Facts
Classification
Doctrine Category Connections
In Area Of Law
Entity-backed identity for the doctrine category value this doctrine already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a doctrine entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.
In Legal System
Source Blue pencil doctrine (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Blue pencil doctrine
a court finds that portions of a contract are void or unenforceable, but other portions of the contract are enforceableView the Source Blue pencil doctrine (Wikipedia)
- In Group: Contract Unconscionability and Unfair Bargain Doctrines, portions of a contract are void or unenforceable, but other portions of the contract are enforceable
In Legal System: Common Law, Wikipedia lead sentence
The blue pencil doctrine is a legal concept in common law countries in which a court finds that portions of a contract are void or unenforceable, but
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