April 23rd, 2013 – It is a good business practice for sellers of goods and providers of services to present potential customers with a written agreement in a form that can be reviewed in a reasonable manner. Beyond that, the hiding of important provisions can result in those provisions becoming unenforceable as a result of a court decision. Such a result is reported below.

In May 2010, William Goodridge purchased a 2008 Hyundai Elantra from El Cajon Mitsubishi. The process involved William being “presented with a stack of preprinted form documents” (the court’s description). He was told by an employee of the dealer to sign and/or initial as indicated. One document was about 26 inches long and contained provisions on both sides of the sheet. The only places for signatures or initials were on the front side of that document.