ABSTRACT
Damages are said to be ‘the remedy of most general application at the present day, and they remain the prime remedy in actions for breach of contract and tort’.1 Even if this observation does underestimate the importance of debt claims in contract,2 damages merits particular attention since it is the remedy designed to compensate for damage, injury and loss. Unlike debt, whose formal nature tends to eclipse questions of damage and causation, damages must be quantified by the court and the question of quantum not only can be complex but can raise fundamental substantive issues about damage and obligations themselves.
