This Chapter considers specific remedies for breach of contract. Under certain circumstances, a contractual promise may be enforced directly. This may be by an action for the agreed sum, by an order for specific performance of the obligation, or by an injunction to restrain the breach of a negative stipulation in a contract or to require the defendant to take positive steps to undo a breach of contract. These remedies have different historical roots, the claim for an agreed sum being, like damages, a common law remedy whereas specific performance and injunctions are equitable remedies that were once exclusively administered by the Court of Chancery.
Chapter
18. Specific Remedies
Jack Beatson, Andrew Burrows, and John Cartwright
Chapter
15. Remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies
Robert Merkin KC, Séverine Saintier, and Jill Poole
Poole’s Casebook on Contract Law provides a comprehensive selection of case law that addresses all aspects of the subject encountered on undergraduate courses. This chapter deals with remedies providing for specific relief and so-called ‘restitutionary’ remedies. It first considers debt claims (agreed sums), before turning to specific performance and injunctions. It concludes by discussing restitution—recovery where there has been a total failure of consideration, and recovery on a quantum meruit (as where a contract fails to materialize)—following the Supreme Court decision of Morris-Garner and another v One Step (Support Ltd) and its impact on Wrotham Park damages and the availability and nature of the account of profits in Attorney General v Blake.
Chapter
15. Remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies
Robert Merkin and Séverine Saintier
Poole’s Casebook on Contract Law provides a comprehensive selection of case law that addresses all aspects of the subject encountered on undergraduate courses. This chapter deals with remedies providing for specific relief and so-called ‘restitutionary’ remedies. It first considers debt claims (agreed sums), before turning to specific performance and injunctions. It concludes by discussing restitution—recovery where there has been a total failure of consideration, and recovery on a quantum meruit (as where a contract fails to materialize)—following the Supreme Court decision of Morris-Garner and another v One Step (Support Ltd) and its impact on Wrotham Park damages and the availability and nature of the account of profits in Attorney-General v Blake.
Chapter
15. Remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies
Robert Merkin, Séverine Saintier, and Jill Poole
Course-focused and comprehensive, Poole’s Textbook on Contract Law provides an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. Equitable remedies that provide for specific relief refer to remedies for breach of contract which compel actual performance rather than simply compensating for loss caused by breach. Compulsion of performance may take the form of claiming an agreed sum, a claim seeking specific performance, or a claim seeking an injunction. The claim or action for an agreed sum gives effect to the claimant’s performance interest by ordering the party in breach to pay the liquidated sum (debt), his agreed performance under the contract. The chapter examines the remedy of specific performance as a court order that compels actual performance of agreed obligations (other than payment of the price). As an equitable remedy it is available at the discretion of the court but only when damages would be an inadequate remedy. This chapter also examines remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies, the latter of which refer to recovery based on failure of consideration and quantum meruit. Finally, the chapter examines the availability of specific compensatory remedies in instances where there is no financial loss, namely the exceptional remedy of an account of profit or the remedy of ‘negotiating damages’—and their relationship.
Chapter
17. Non-compensatory remedies
Specific performance, debt, and restitution
This chapter considers a range of non-compensatory remedies that are available at English law in cases of breach. Non-compensatory remedies seek to respond to breach of contract in ways other than compensation. The starting point for non-monetary obligations is that breach is best remedied through the award of damages. Literal enforcement of such an obligation, through an order for specific performance or an injunction, is only awarded in exceptional circumstances. In contrast, obligations involving the payment of a definite sum of money are frequently literally enforced through the remedy of debt. This chapter first examines literal performance as a non-compensatory remedy before discussing debt, gain-based remedies, and restitution interest.
Chapter
5. Non-contractual promises
Promissory and proprietary estoppel
This chapter considers how promissory and proprietary estoppel intersect with the law of contract. Where an agreement is unenforceable at contract law because some legal prerequisite or formality has not been met, that role is played by the law of estoppel. The law of estoppel works by deeming a party to be legally prevented (‘estopped’) from going back on something she has in the past asserted, promised, or accepted. The effect of estoppel is to hold the person to that past assertion or promise, by preventing her from resiling from it. This chapter first examines the context of promissory estoppel before discussing its requirements and its effect, such as suspending rights and extinguishing debts. It then explains the requirements of proprietary estoppel; namely, there must be a promise or encouragement, the promise or encouragement must induce reasonable reliance, reliance must be detrimental, and unconscionability.
Chapter
15. Remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies
Robert Merkin KC, Séverine Saintier, and Jill Poole
Course-focused and comprehensive, Poole’s Textbook on Contract Law provides an accessible overview of the key areas of the law curriculum. Equitable remedies that provide for specific relief refer to remedies for breach of contract which compel actual performance, rather than simply compensating for loss caused by breach. Compulsion of performance may take the form of claiming an agreed sum, a claim seeking specific performance, or a claim seeking an injunction. The claim or action for an agreed sum gives effect to the claimant’s performance interest by ordering the party in breach to pay the liquidated sum (debt), his agreed performance under the contract. The chapter examines the remedy of specific performance as a court order that compels actual performance of agreed obligations (other than payment of the price). As an equitable remedy it is available at the discretion of the court, but only when damages would be an inadequate remedy. This chapter also examines remedies providing for specific relief and restitutionary remedies, the latter of which refer to recovery based on failure of consideration and quantum meruit. Finally, the chapter examines the availability of specific compensatory remedies in instances where there is no financial loss, namely the exceptional remedy of an account of profit or the remedy of ‘negotiating damages’—and their relationship.
