In this episode I close out the course and explain what’s ahead for Contracts.

We finally come to our final contracts episode. Here we will look at the restitution interest, and the possible remedy of specific performance.

United States ex rel. Coastal Steel Erectors, Inc. v. Algernon Blair, Inc.
City Stores Co. v. Ammerman

Sometimes, for reasons discussed in earlier episodes, expectation damages will not be allowable. Other times, the expected damages will be zero or negative (ie the breached contract was a losing one). In those instances reliance or restitution damages might be requested. We will examine these alternate theories of recovery in the next two episodes.

Wartzman v. Hightower Productions
Walser v. Toyota Motor Sales

The expectation damages analysis can be circumvented if the parties agree in advance what the damages for breach would be. However, these agreed remedies (or “liquidated damages”) are not always allowed by courts, as they often serve as a penalty and not simply a forecast of actual damage.

Wasserman’s Inc. v. Township of Middletown

We now turn to the mitigation limit on expectation damages. What must a plaintiff in a breach action do in order to mitigate damages?

Rockingham County v. Luten Bridge Co.
Boehm v. American Broadcasting Corp

We continue our discussion of expectation damages by looking at the forseeability element. General and special damages will be examined and differentiated.

Hadley v. Baxendale
Florafax International, Inc. v. GTE Market Resources, Inc.

We now examine one of the most frequent ways of determining damages:the expectations of the injured party. We will discuss and apply the expectation damages calculation formulated by the famous Prof. Farnesworth.

Turner v. Benson
Handicapped Children’s Education Board v. Lukaszewski

Express conditions are a way for the parties to structure which duties come due when. Oftentimes the non-occurrence of an express condition will prevent a contract from even being formed in the first place. We will also contrast express conditions with contractual duties, inasmuch as the doctrine of substantial performance is concerned.

Oppenheimer & Co. v. Oppenheim, Appel, Dixon, & Co.
JNA Realty Corp. v. Cross Bay Chelsea, Inc.
Morin Building Products Co. v. Baystone Construction, Inc.

Change happens. Sometimes, that change is sufficient for a court to release one party to a contract from their duties. We will examine frustration, impracticability, and impossibility in this episode.

Karl Wendt Farm Equipment Co. v. International Harvester
Mel Frank Tool & Supply, Inc. v. Di-Chem Co.

We will briefly examine constructive conditions before transitioning onto repudiation. We’ll determine what remedies are available to someone who reasonably believes that the other party is about to breach (ie anticipatory repudiation). This episode will conclude our discussion of breach.

Truman L. Flatt & Sons Co. v. Schupf
Hornell Brewing Co. v. Spry