At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award.
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance. Breach occurs when a party to a contract fails to fulfill its obligation(s), whether partially or wholly, as described in the contract, or communicates an intent to fail the obligation or otherwise appears not to be able to perform its obligation under the contract. Where there is breach of contract, the resulting damages have to be paid to the aggrieved party by the party breaching the contract.
In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is, in effect, a termination. For example, when an employer places extraordinary and unreasonable work demands on an employee to obtain their resignation, this can constitute a constructive dismissal.
Quantum meruit is a Latin phrase meaning "what one has earned". In the context of contract law, it means something along the lines of "reasonable value of services".
Hadley & Anor v Baxendale& Ors [1854] EWHC J70 is a leading English contract law case. It sets the leading rule to determine consequential damages from a breach of contract: a breaching party is liable for all losses that the contracting parties should have foreseen. However, if the other party has special knowledge that the party-in-breach does not, the breaching party is only liable for the losses that he could have foreseen on the information available to him.
English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil law, rather than criminal law, that usually requires a payment of money to make up for damage that is caused. Alongside contracts and unjust enrichment, tort law is usually seen as forming one of the three main pillars of the law of obligations.
Anticipatory repudiation or anticipatory breach is a concept in the law of contracts which describes words or conduct by a contracting party that evinces an intention not to perform or not to be bound by provisions of the agreement that require performance in the future.
Liquidated damages, also referred to as liquidated and ascertained damages (LADs), are damages whose amount the parties designate during the formation of a contract for the injured party to collect as compensation upon a specific breach. This is most applicable where the damages are intangible.
Fundamental breach of contract, is a controversial concept within the common law of contract. The doctrine was, in particular, nurtured by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls from 1962 to 1982, but it did not find favour with the House of Lords.
The law of contract in Australia is similar to other Anglo-American common law jurisdictions.
Expectation damages are damages recoverable from a breach of contract by the non-breaching party. An award of expectation damages protects the injured party's interest in realising the value of the expectancy that was created by the promise of the other party. Thus, the impact of the breach on the promisee is to be effectively "undone" with the award of expectation damages.
In contract law, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is a general presumption that the parties to a contract will deal with each other honestly, fairly, and in good faith, so as to not destroy the right of the other party or parties to receive the benefits of the contract. It is implied in a number of contract types in order to reinforce the express covenants or promises of the contract.
Wallace v United Grain Growers Ltd, 1997 CanLII 332, [1997] 3 SCR 701 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the area of Canadian employment law, particularly in determining damages arising from claims concerning wrongful dismissal.
English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries across the Commonwealth, from membership in the European Union, continuing membership in Unidroit, and to a lesser extent the United States. Any agreement that is enforceable in court is a contract. A contract is a voluntary obligation, contrasting to the duty to not violate others rights in tort or unjust enrichment. English law places a high value on ensuring people have truly consented to the deals that bind them in court, so long as they comply with statutory and human rights.
The Achilleas or Transfield Shipping Inc v Mercator Shipping Inc [2008] UKHL 48 is an English contract law case, concerning remoteness of damage.
In English law, implied terms are default rules for contracts on points where the terms which contracting parties expressly choose are silent, or mandatory rules which operate to override terms that the parties may have themselves chosen. The purpose of implied terms is often to supplement a contractual agreement in the interest of making the deal effective for the purpose of business, to achieve fairness between the parties or to relieve hardship.
Mitigation in law is the principle that a party who has suffered loss has to take reasonable action to minimize the amount of the loss suffered. As stated by the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal in Redpath Industries Ltd. v. Cisco (The), "It is well established that a party who suffers damages as a result of a breach of contract has a duty to mitigate those damages, that is to say that the wrongdoer cannot be called upon to pay for avoidable losses which would result in an increase in the quantum of damages payable to the injured party." The onus on showing a failure to mitigate damages is on the defendant. In the UK, Lord Leggatt describes the "function of the doctrine of mitigation" as enabling the law
to distinguish between effects on the claimant's financial position which are to be regarded as caused by the defendant's breach of contract and for which damages can therefore be recovered and effects which are attributed to the claimant's own action or inaction in response to the breach and for which the defendant is not liable.
South African contract law is "essentially a modernized version of the Roman-Dutch law of contract", and is rooted in canon and Roman laws. In the broadest definition, a contract is an agreement two or more parties enter into with the serious intention of creating a legal obligation. Contract law provides a legal framework within which persons can transact business and exchange resources, secure in the knowledge that the law will uphold their agreements and, if necessary, enforce them. The law of contract underpins private enterprise in South Africa and regulates it in the interest of fair dealing.
In law, wrongful dismissal, also called wrongful termination or wrongful discharge, is a situation in which an employee's contract of employment has been terminated by the employer, where the termination breaches one or more terms of the contract of employment, or a statute provision or rule in employment law. Laws governing wrongful dismissal vary according to the terms of the employment contract, as well as under the laws and public policies of the jurisdiction.
