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 United Kingdom law, the concept of wrongful dismissal refers exclusively to dismissal contrary to the contract of employment, which effectively means premature termination, either due to insufficient notice or lack of grounds. Although wrongful dismissal is usually associated with lack of notice sometimes it can also be caused by arbitrary dismissal where no notice was required but certain grounds were specified in the contract as being the only ones available but none existed.
Loss of chance in English law refers to a particular problem of causation, which arises in tort and contract. The law is invited to assess hypothetical outcomes, either affecting the claimant or a third party, where the defendant's breach of contract or of the duty of care for the purposes of negligence deprived the claimant of the opportunity to obtain a benefit and/or avoid a loss. For these purposes, the remedy of damages is normally intended to compensate for the claimant's loss of expectation. The general rule is that while a loss of chance is compensable when the chance was something promised on a contract it is not generally so in the law of tort, where most cases thus far have been concerned with medical negligence in the public health system.
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.
Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd[1972] EWCA 8 is an English contract law case on the measure of damages for disappointing breaches of contract.
Farley v Skinner [2001] UKHL 49 is an English contract law case, concerning the measure and availability of damages for distress.
Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd [1909] AC 488 is an old English contract law and UK labour law case, which used to restrict damages for non-pecuniary losses for breach of contract.
Johnson v Unisys Limited [2001] UKHL 13 is a leading UK labour law case on the measure of damages for unfair dismissal and the nature of the contract of employment.
Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1995] UKHL 8 is an English contract law case, concerning the choice between an award of damages for the cost of curing a defect in a building contract or for awarding damages for loss of "amenity".
Honda Canada Inc v Keays, 2008 SCC 39, [2008] 2 SCR 362 is a leading case of the Supreme Court of Canada that has had significant impact in Canadian employment law, in that it reformed the manner in which damages are to be awarded in cases of wrongful dismissal and it declared that such awards were not affected by the type of position an employee may have had.
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.
Horsburgh v NZ Meat Processors Industrial Union of Workers CA102/86 [1988] NZCA 75; [1988] 1 NZLR 698; (1988) 2 NZELC 96,397; (1988) ERNZ Sel Cas 193 is a cited case in New Zealand law allowing compensation for non financial loss, for example for distress. It effectively overruled Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd [1909] AC 488 in NZ case law.
Reda v Flag Ltd [2002] UKPC 38 is a case from Bermuda law, advised upon by the Privy Council, that is relevant for UK labour law and UK company law concerning the dismissal of a director.
Burch v Willoughby Consultants Ltd (1990) 3 NZELC 97,582 is a cited case in New Zealand regarding the remedy of damages for mental distress under the Contractual Remedies Act (1979) for breach of contract.
Lawrance A. Bohm is an American lawyer who is most noted for winning what is believed to be the two largest single-plaintiff employment verdicts in United States history: $185,872,719.52 in Juarez v. AutoZone Stores, Inc. and $167,730,488.00 in Chopourian v. Catholic Healthcare West. Bohm has won several other large verdicts protecting and defending civil and workplace rights. Bohm has represented clients in several high-profile cases.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker is a leading Australian judgment of the High Court which unanimously and firmly rejected the proposition that contracts of employment in Australia should contain an implied term of mutual trust and confidence.
An employment bond is a contract requiring that an employee continue to work for their employer for a specified period, under penalty of a monetary forfeiture to the employer. Such contracts and associated surety bonds are similar to indentured servitude or serfdom, in that although employees are compensated, they are not permitted to leave their employment except under specified conditions. However, in general, the only penalty for breaching the contract is payment of the bond amount.
