The purpose of damages is to put the claimant party into the financial point they were in prior to entering the contract that caused the problem. It is a monetary sum set by the court to reimburse the claimant. Therefore the innocent party must show that they have suffered actual loss, if this can’t be proved then they will only be entitled to nominal damages. To award the claimant for damages, the court has to think about two things:
Remoteness – for example the consequence of the breach is the defendant legally responsible and
Measure of Damages – the damages are evaluated in monetary terms.
The case of Hadley v Baxendale established the rule of Remoteness of loss. The court came up with the principle that where one party is in breach of contract, the claimant is to receive damages which can be considered to come from the breach of contract itself.
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It is given where damages are not a suitable answer to compensate the claimant because the claimant has to stop the defendant from continuing breach on the contract. The two main types of injunction are prohibitory injunction – an order that something must not be done. The second is mandatory injunction – an order that something is to be done.
Reliance loss can occur when the claimant has suffered a loss in expenditure due to the contract. The purpose of this remedy is the same as expectation loss, as it is designed to put the claimant in the previous financial position they would have been prior to entering the contract. Reliance loss can be claimed as expectation loss cannot be recovered.
Another type of remedy is specific performance, this is where the court orders the defendant to carry out their part of the contract. This remedy is to put the parties in the position they would have been if the contract had been carried out correctly in the first place. For example the case of Falcke v Gray 1859 as the contract was for unique Chinese
The case of Kamloops v. Nielson was a landmark decision for tort law, since it established the duty of care principle in Canadian private law, which prior to this case was used in the Anns v. Merton case and expanded the scope of duty first identified in Donoghue v. Stevenson. In the historic case of Donoghue v. Stevenson, duty of care was established to include anyone that could be foreseeably harmed by someone’s actions, creating the neighbour principle. The Anns v. Merton case expanded the scope of the neighbour principle to including public bodies, such as the municipality. The case involved a faulty building foundation, which resulting in requiring repairs for the house, and whether the municipality should have to pay for the repairs, since it was the job of the municipality to inspect and ensure the building was properly constructed. Whether public tax allocations should be subject to tort litigations was placed in question in the case but the municipality was held liable for damages nevertheless.
Damages in the United States include two categories. Compensatory damages are intended to compensate for the plaintiff’s loss. Punitive damages, on the contrary, are meant to punish the defendant .The punitive damages exceed the plaintiff’s loss, to dissuade the defendant from any further wrongdoings. For instance, having a company pay significant punitive damages may encourage it to greater caution. Another difference between the two categories is the money involved. If the damages are compensatory, the money usually goes entirely to the plaintiff, but if they are punitive, part of the money goes to the law firm and part to the plaintiff.
(1) When the contract was entered into, was it apparent that damages would be difficult to estimate in the event of a breach? (2) Was the amount set as damages a reasonable estimate and not excessive? (Cross & Miller, 2012)
If a breach of contract is both material and opportunistic, the injured promisee has a claim in restitution to the profit realized by the defaulting promisor as a result of the breach. Liability in restitution with disgorgement of profit is an alternative to liability for contract damages measured by injury to the promisee.
The decision in Equuscorp is significant, as it has made clear several principles that were once ambiguous under Australian law. It ratifies that restitutionary remedies are unavailable for a claim for money had and received where recovery would reduce coherence in the law. Furthermore, Equuscorp has confirmed that a bare cause of action can be assigned where the assignee has a genuine commercial interest in its enforcement.
Having evaluated the current state of English contract law, mainly made up of piecemeal solutions, it can be seen that despite being satisfactory and doing its job, there still remain gaps within the law of contract where unfairness is not dealt with. Moreover, due to the ad hoc nature of those piecemeal solutions, the latter have often produced inconsistent justice and have manifested cases of unfairness. Hence, “a relatively small number of respected Justices have endeavored to draw attention to the fact that the application of a general principle might be useful and even necessary in English law.”
and remedies applied by courts of law in civil proceedings giving the plaintiff or claimant relief
In order to critically assess the approach of the courts in allowing damages for pure economic loss in cases of negligence. One must first outline what pure economic loss is and what it consists off. Pure economic loss can be defined as financial loss or damage to one party caused by another party due to their negligence however the negligent act that is carried out is ‘purely’ economic and has no relation to any physical damage caused to any person or property. Numerous cases illustrate pure economic loss and losses that are deemed to be ‘purely economic’ are demonstrated under the Accidents Act 1976.
This is where the individuals exercise their rights to seek compensations for damages or injuries. Also this is a law that is not controlled by the judges based on previous things that had happen in the past.
Compensatory means actual payment of fines such as medical bills to the injured party, whereas punitive is rarely carried out and more of a warning. Injunction means to do or not do something, such as placing a restraining order on the defendant as a guilty party. 2. What is the difference between a.. The U.S. dual court system is divided into two branches and the federal court system is one system, the state court systems are the other and exist in each of the 50 states and territories.
Frustration is a long established doctrine in English law, which allows for the termination of a contract when, through no fault of either party, an unforeseeable, supervening event, renders performance of the contract impossible, or ‘radically different’.1 This doctrine coincides with force majeure, a continental doctrine and a term not traditionally recognised in English courts. Firstly this essay will briefly look at force majeure clauses, before moving on to what the doctrine of frustration is, and how it is justified. Then the problems with frustration will be addressed, and how force majeure clauses can be used, to some extent, to solve these problems. Lastly, the challenges to the retainment of the doctrine of frustration will be considered, but it will essentially be concluded that both doctrines can coexist in English law. Force majeure clauses are, in simple terms, provisions in a contract which allocate specific remedies for certain ‘unforeseen’ events. Force majeure events include Acts of God, storms, flood, fire, war, strikes and more. 2 The widespread use of force majeure clauses in commercial contracts nowadays could be, in part, down to the desire of parties in long-term contracts to continue their relationship through changing circumstances and the introduction of EU law into our domestic system. The law before the doctrine of frustration was one of absolute contracts, in the sense that only limited circumstances excused non-performance. The main authority establishing this concept is Paradine v Jane, 3 which established that once a party assumes an obligation, they are ‘bound to make it good’. 4 The roots of the doctrine of frustration were established in the landmark case of
In Krell v. Henry {1903} a plea of frustration succeeded because the court held that the common purpose for which the contact was entered into, could no longer be carried out. But in the same year for similar set of facts, the Court of Appeal decided in Herne Bay v. Hutton [1903] that the contract had not been frustrated because the "common formation of the contract" had not changed. It clearly was a policy decision which shows the reluctance of the courts to provide an escape route for a party for whom the contract ha...
Equitable remedies are enforced when money damages does not adequately satisfy the non-breaching party. Some types of equitable remedies available are: Rescission which allows the non-breaching party to cancel their contractual responsibilities. Reformation whereby the parties can modify the contract so it reflects what each party’s responsibility will be. Lastly, specific performance which is a court order that requires the original contract to be fulfilled by the breaching party. On the other hand there are legal remedies which are monetary damages of one form or another that are awarded to the non-breaching party. These remedies include punitive damages that payments that are paid to the non-breaching party for full compensation and is also used to punish the guilty party and to deter them from participating in that manner again (“Remedies against,” n. d.). Consequential damages that will reimburse the innocent party for costs that resulted from the breach. Compensatory damages are given to the non-breaching party for the breach. Liquidation Damages are often awarded when it is difficult to determine the actual amount of damaged a party received due to a breach and collect attorney fees and costs incurred as a result of legal proceedings (“Remedies against,” n. d.). Some other remedies are cancellation and restitution which allows the non-breaching party to cancel the contract and sue for restitution if the breaching party received any benefits under the contract. Another remedy is nominal damages in which are small awards or tokens given to the non-breaching party when a breach occurs and there is usually no real money loss experienced by the non-breaching party in this matter (“Remedies against,” n.
The basic law of a contract is an agreement between two parties or more, to deliver a service or a product. And reach a consensus about the terms and conditions that is enforced by law and a contract can be only valid if it is lawful other than that there can’t be a contract. For a contract to exist the parties must have serious intentions, agreement, contractual capacity meaning a party must be able to carry a responsibility, lawful, possibility of performance and formalities. Any duress, false statements, undue influence or unconscionable dealings could make a contract unlawful and voidable.
The plaintiff must prove that the defendant had a duty to act reasonably, that the defendant failed to fulfill that obligation, that the breach of duty caused the plaintiffs injuries, and that the plaintiff suffered some sort of injury. In order to prove that the defendant was negligent and therefore liable for their injuries, the plaintiff must prove all of the elements which are duty, breach, proximate cause, and damages. For instance, one of the elements is damages, meaning the plaintiff must have suffered damages (injuries, loss, etc.) in order for the defendant to be held liable. So even if you can prove that the defendant indeed acted negligently, you may not collect damages if you didn't suffer any injuries. The law will not hold a defendant liable for every injury to the plaintiff but only for those injuries that are proven and directly related to a breach of a