ABSTRACT
The issues that arise in damages questions tend to centre around the principles used to decide what type of damages to award, rather than how the precise figure to be awarded is arrived at. Thus, the questions will raise issues about:
v the principle behind the award – that is, generally compensation rather than punishment, putting the parties into the position they would have been in had the contract been performed properly;
v the difference between the expectation interest and the reliance interest; vthe possibility of a ‘restitutionary’ remedy (not based on compensation), as
recognised by the House of Lords in Attorney General v Blake (2000); v the rule of remoteness – what is meant by a loss being ‘within the reasonable
contemplation of the parties’ (The Heron II (1969)). The House of Lords’ decision in Jackson v Royal Bank of Scotland (2005) will need discussion. Again, some comparison with the tortious rule of remoteness may be called for; and
v the situations in which non-pecuniary losses may be recoverable – as reviewed by the House of Lords in Farley v Skinner (2001).
