139:βThe law of contract compensates a plaintiff for damages resulting from the defendant's breach; it does not compensate a plaintiff for damages resulting from his making a bad bargain. Where it can be seen that the plaintiff would have incurred a loss on the contract as a whole, the expenses he has incurred are losses flowing from entering into the contract, not losses flowing from the defendant's breach. In these circumstances, the true consequence of the defendant's breach is that the plaintiff is released from his obligation to complete the contract β or in other words, he is saved from incurring further losses. If the law of contract were to move from compensating for the consequences of breach to compensating for the consequences of entering into contracts, the law would run contrary to the normal expectations of the world of commerce. The burden of risk would be shifted from the plaintiff to the defendant. The defendant would become the insurer of the plaintiff's enterprise. Moreover, the amount of the damages would increase not in relation to the gravity or consequences of the breach but in relation to the inefficiency with which the plaintiff carried out the contract. The greater his expenses owing to inefficiency, the greater the damages. The fundamental principle upon which damages are measured under the law of contract is restitutio in integrum. The principle contended for here by the plaintiff would entail the award of damages not to compensate the plaintiff but to punish the defendant.β
131:βThe parties entered into a contract whereby the plaintiff would cut timber under the defendant's timber sale, and the defendant would be responsible for hauling the timber away from the site of the timber sale. The plaintiff claimed the defendant was in breach of the contract as the defendant had not supplied sufficient trucks to make the plaintiff's operation, which was losing money, viable, and claimed not for loss of profits but for compensation for expenditures. The defendant argued that the plaintiff's operation lost money not because of a lack of trucks but because of the plaintiff's inefficiency, and, further, that even if the defendant had breached the contract the plaintiff should not be awarded damages because its operation would have lost money in any case.β
28:
148:
who is the plaintiff in the counterclaim, if he was right in his claim, would indeed be in a better position because, as I have already indicated, had the contract been lawfully determined as it could have been in the middle of
December, there would have been no question of his recovering these expenses.
147:
In my judgment, the approach of Berger J. is the correct one. It is not the function of the courts where there is a breach of contract knowingly, as this would be the case, to put a plaintiff in a better financial position than if the contract had been properly performed. In this case the defendant
110:
4 W.W.R. 105 . Berger J., in a very careful and detailed judgment, goes through various
English and American authorities and refers to the leading textbook writers, and I will only quote a small part of his judgment. At the bottom of p. 115 he refers to the work of Professor L.L. Fuller and William
143:
It is urged here that the garage itself was merely an element in the defendant's business; it was not a profit-making entity on its own. Nevertheless, if as a result of being kept out of these premises the defendant had found no other premises to go to for a period of time, his claim would clearly
87:
George
Middleton had a licence to occupy premises for six months at a time, renewable. He used it for his car repair business. He improved the property, even though the contract stated fixtures were not to be removed at the end of the licence. C&P Haulage Co Ltd ejected him for breach of
99:
held that
Middletonβs loss did not flow from the breach of contract, but him going and doing the repairs when he was not meant to. So no recovery of reliance loss was available, where it would allow Middleton to escape a bad bargain or reverse the contractual allocation of risk.
298:
123:βheld that on a claim for compensation for expenses in part performance the defendant was entitled to deduct whatever he could prove the plaintiff would have lost if the contract had been fully performed.β
415:
115:βWe will not in a suit for reimbursement for losses incurred in reliance on a contract knowingly put the plaintiff in a better position than he would have occupied had the contract been fully performed.β
119:
Berger J., at p. 116, then refers to L. Albert & Son v. Armstrong Rubber Co. (1949) 178 F. 2d 182 in which
Learned Hand C.J., speaking for the Circuit Court of Appeals , Second Circuit:
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312:
458:
444:
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403:
104:
The case which I have found of assistance β and I am grateful to counsel for their research β is a case in the
British Columbia Supreme Court:
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499:
178:
358:
111:
R. Perdue, Jr., in βThe
Reliance Interest in Contract Damages: 1β (1936), 46 Yale Law Jour. 52 and their statement, at p. 79:
380:
135:
This submission was clearly accepted because the plaintiff was awarded only nominal damages, and Berger J. said, at p. 117:
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489:
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contract. Mr
Middleton argued he should be entitled to damages for the cost of the improvements he had made.
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case, concerning damages for costs incurred by a claimant related to a defendant's breach of contract.
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have been a claim for such loss of profit as he could establish his business suffered.
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436:
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156:
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Golden Strait
Corporation v Nippon Yusen Kubishka Kaisha
127:What Berger J. had to consider was this, p. 105:
481:
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208:Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co.
417:Dies v British Mining and Finance Corp Ltd
300:British Westinghouse Ltd v Underground Ltd
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495:Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases
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359:Cooperative Insurance Ltd v Argyll Ltd
381:Wrotham Park Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd
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48:EWCA Civ 5 1 WLR 1461, 3 All ER 94
39:Court of Appeal of England and Wales
13:
186:
69:C&P Haulage Co Ltd v Middleton
21:C&P Haulage Co Ltd v Middleton
14:
511:
220:Ruxley Electronics Ltd v Forsyth
107:Bowlay Logging Ltd v. Domtar Ltd
500:1983 in United Kingdom case law
448:EWCA Civ 68, QB 1, 3 WLR 633
1:
471:
393:Surrey CC v Bredero Homes Ltd
335:Sky Petroleum v VIP Petroleum
313:Banco de Portugal v Waterlow
231:Anglia Television Ltd v Reed
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324:Saamco v York Montague Ltd
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370:Attorney General v Blake
255:Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd
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490:English remedy case law
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211:, 382 P 2d 109 (1962)
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445:Habton Farms v Nimmo
431:English contract law
77:English contract law
453:The Golden Victory
277:Hadley v Baxendale
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199:(1848) 1 Exch 850
196:Robinson v Harman
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404:Rowland v Divall
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266:Farley v Skinner
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58:Judge sitting
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347:Patel v Ali
484:Categories
472:References
73:EWCA Civ 5
384:1 WLR 798
338:1 WLR 576
97:Ackner LJ
61:Ackner LJ
421:1 KB 724
407:2 KB 500
246:2 KB 786
153:See also
92:Judgment
45:Citation
462:UKHL 12
234:1 QB 60
440:AC 367
350:Ch 283
304:AC 673
75:is an
467:Notes
83:Facts
35:Court
456:or
486::
180:e
173:t
166:v
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