The Simplified blog

    Hi

I'm taking a short break from contract rewriting to complain about 'subject to', and wonder why more people don't.

THe phrase is unclear. Look here:

’Payment can only be made subject to Company X’s practice at the time’.

So 'subject to' means 'depending on a condition'. But then read it without a break between 'made' and 'subject' (so subject becomes a noun) and you get a different meaning altogether.

And then it can mean 'liable to' as in the case of 'she is subject to being delayed by linguistic ambiguity'.  And one should not confuse it with 'being subjected to' as in 'the reader is being subjected to too much information'.

But the last straw is further down in the contract I'm working on where I find:

’If the contract is subject to a cession, then the benefit will be paid to the owner’...

Which seems to use a different slant?

Let's stop with 'subject to'. No-one (normal) uses the term anyways,

Frances