Where a party agrees to grant a good lease in full knowledge that he does not hold the full title, the other party may recover damages which would so far as possible place him in the same position he would have been had the contract been performed.

Summarise ruling in Hadley v Baxendale (1854)

A contracting party is liable for losses either: 1) arising naturally, ie according to the usual course of things, or 2) such as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties, at the time they made the contract, as probable result of the breach of it

Summarise the ruling in Victoria Laundry (Windsor) Ltd v Newman Industries Ltd

The claimants could only recover losses which were in the reasonable contemplation of the parties which included the loss of profit that could be expected from the lack of use of the boiler, but the claimant could not recover for the loss of the exceptionally lucrative contract since the defendant was unaware of this contract.

Summarise Charter v Sullivan

The defendant bought a Hillman Minx car from the plaintiff but refused to accept it. The plaintiff’s profit would have been £97. However, only nominal damages were awarded because he could only sell as many cars as he could get from the makers.

Summarise Thompson (WL) Ltd v Robinson (Gunmakers) Ltd [1955]

The defendant bought a Vanguard car from the plaintiff, and later refused to accept and pay for it. The plaintiff’s profit would have been £61. It was held that where, as here, the supply of Vanguard cars exceeded the demand, had the plaintiff found another customer and sold to him as well as the defendant, then there would have been two sales and two profits. Therefore, the defendant was liable for £61.

Summarise judgment in Payzu v Saunders [1919]

It was held that the plaintiff had permitted himself to sustain a large measure of the loss which, as prudent and reasonable people, they ought to have avoided. He had the cash available to meet the defendant’s demands and could have mitigated by purchasing off the defendant at the contract price as the defendant offered, instead of going into the market to purchase at a higher price. He was, therefore, not entitled to damages.

Summarise judgement in Chaplin v Hicks [1911]

The claimant entered a beauty contest in which the prize was a theatre chorus line. She made the shortlist but the defendants did not tell her when the interviews were taking place and therefore she missed her opportunity. The court awarded her £100 damages for the lost chance - calculated through the value of the prize and a discount due to the fact she may not have won if she participated.

H. Parsons Ltd v Uttley Ingham & Co. Ltd 1978

The claimant received diseased and dead pigs from the defendants. They were able to claim reasonable foreseeable physical damage and financial loss associated with this (however not for future sales of pigs as the defendants would not have known/foreseen that this was a possibility). In this case they used the tortious test ‘reasonable foreseeability’ and the contractual test ‘foreseeable as a serious possibility’

Brown v KMR Services 1995

Insurance losses were regarded as a type of loss that would have been contemplated by both parties and the loss was in much greater scale than anyone could predict (due to it being around insurance it is different to Victoria Laundry)

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