Section 7 Contract Cases

• Library: Damages 2012

Profits, even if capable of proof to a certainty, cannot always be recovered in contract cases. For example, if a business failed to pay wages to its employee and the employee was going to use the wages to buy a stock, the failure to pay the wages would not support a claim for a loss of profit on the stock even if the employee could prove the loss with certainty by showing that the employee had already ordered the stock before the breach and that after the breach the stock increased in value. Because all losses of profit that flow from a breach are not available, even if they were both caused by the defendant’s breach and reasonably certain, there are certain rules that must be met before profits are awarded, as discussed in §§14.8–14.10 below.

In reviewing the standards for...