Comment on 'Profits Derived from Breach of Contract or Restitution'

• Main Author: HUNTER, Howard
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1997
• Subjects: Commercial Law; Contracts
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/2129; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/4081/viewcontent/CommentaryProfitsDerivedBreachContract_1997.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

There is little with which to disagree in Professor Waddams' paper on the categorisation of damage recoveries in the cases posited, viz, those involving a breach which results in benefit to the breaching party but no loss of any consequence to the nonbreaching party. If the goal of contract remedies is to compensate the plaintiff for loss, then, presumably, there should be no recovery at all in such cases. At most there might be nominal damages to compensate for some transaction costs or perhaps as a ’declaration of rights’. In some of the cases considered by Waddams, breach might be considered to be useful as a means to promote efficiency by moving the breaching party's performance to a higher valuing user.