18. Remedies III: other non-compensatory or exceptional remedies

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines non-compensatory remedies for breach of contract. It analyses why a non-compensatory remedy can be desirable and discusses the four types of non-compensatory remedies. These include restitution for total failure of basis, forfeiture of deposits, negotiation damages (or the user principle), disgorgement, and punitive damages.

16. Remedies I: compensatory damages

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter focuses on compensatory damages, the principal remedy for breach of contract, and explores the actionable types of loss. It deals with the various measures of damages, how they are quantified, and discusses the circumstances in which the claimant can recover for non-financial loss. It explores principles of causation and the remoteness of damage test for breach of contract, the requirement of mitigation and the defence of contributory negligence.

13. Common mistake and rectification

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the situation where both parties to a contract share a common mistake. It analyses several court cases indicating that certain sorts of mistake can render contracts void at the level of common law. It discusses the doctrine of mistake approach which asserts that certain sorts of common mistake inevitably render a contract void and the construction approach which argues that the effect of common mistake is ascertained by construing and interpreting the contract. This chapter also considers the scope of the equitable remedy of rectification for common and unilateral mistake.

7. Terms of the contract I

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines issues related to the terms of the contract. It explains the distinction between terms and mere representations, and analyses the difference between signed and unsigned contracts in relation to the incorporation of express. This chapter also considers the parol evidence rule and the modern contextual approach to contractual interpretation. Finally it considers implied terms, which can be implied by statute or by the courts.

15. Discharge of a contract for breach

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the circumstances in which a contract can be terminated or discharged by one party following breach or incomplete performance by the other party, covering entire obligations. It explains that breach of contract does not automatically bring a contract to an end and that termination of a contract for breach is not the same as rescission. This chapter also discusses the two sorts of situation in which the innocent party can terminate the contract for the other party’s breach, namely breach of condition or serious breach of an innominate term, and following repudiation, and considers the innocent party’s option to elect whether to terminate the contract or keep it alive.

14. Frustration

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the doctrine of frustration, which can only be invoked where the parties have not allocated the risk of the relevant event in their bargain, such as by means of a force majeure clause. It explains that issues of frustration arise where circumstances change radically after the contract has been entered into, which show that an assumption held by both parties at the time of contracting no longer applies. It analyses the effects of frustration at common law and discusses the current test for frustration. This chapter also considers the provisions of the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943.

10. Duress

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines contracts induced by duress, which is a vitiating factor. It explains that duress involves one party coercing or pressuring the other party into making a contract and its most important feature is that it generally involves pressure applied by means of an illegitimate threat. It discusses the different types of duress—duress to the person, duress of goods, and focusing in more detail on economic duress and its various requirements. It explores the controversial question of whether relief should be extended to cases of lawful act duress such as threats not to contract.

9. Misrepresentation and non-disclosure

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines issues related to pre-contractual misrepresentation, which is a vitiating factor. It explains what counts as an actionable misrepresentation and discusses its distinction with the treatment of non-disclosure. It explores the elements for an actionable misrepresentation and the test of cause/reliance. It considers the remedies for misrepresentation, namely rescission which involves setting the contract aside and restoring the parties to the pre-contractual position, and damages, which are available at common law for fraudulent misrepresentation and under the Misrepresentation Act 1967 for other misrepresentations unless the misrepresentor can discharge the burden of reasonable grounds for belief. This chapter also explains that any clause that purports to exclude or restrict liability for misrepresentation is subject to the statutory requirement of reasonableness.

6. Privity

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter examines the doctrine of privity in the law of contract. The doctrine of privity dictates that a person who is not a party to the contract cannot be granted contractual rights by the contract or be placed under contractual obligations by it. It explores the rationale of the principle, discusses the authorities that established it, and explores the various common law exceptions to the rule that a third party cannot acquire rights under a contract. This chapter also covers the statutory exception to privity provided in the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

5. Consideration and estoppel

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter explores and defends the consideration requirement in the enforceability of contractual obligations, both when the contract is formed and if it is varied, refuting some of the criticisms calling for the requirement of consideration to be reformed or abolished in English law. It defines consideration as the ‘price of the promise’ and clarifies that an act or promise must have been requested by the promisor to count as consideration. It explores issues such as past consideration, performance of an existing contractual duty, part payment of a debt, for which latter issue the common law rule is ameliorated by the equitable doctrine of promissory estoppel.