Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
It is often said that contractual damages awards compensate the promisee for loss caused by breach. Statements like this are indeterminate because they leave unspecified whether such awards aim merely to make good some of the eventual deterioration in the promisee’s balance sheet position attributable to breach or instead redress the immediate loss of performance entailed by the breach itself. This article demonstrates that Anglo-Australian law recognises both of these claims and defends the High Court’s emphatic recognition of this proposition in Clark v Macourt.

David Winterton, Claims For The Value Of The Lost Contractual Performance, University of Western Australia Law Review volume 45(1):75 (2019).

First posted 2019-06-12 14:36:22