Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OF CONTRACT
ONEof the most perplexing problems in the English law of contract
concerns the remedies which one contracting party has in the event
of the other’s failure to perform in accordance with the contract.
One reason for the difficulty is that discussions of t h i s problem are
often widely scattered in the books, with the result that very
different solutions are proposed for problems which appear to be
basically similar. At the same time precisely the opposite fault is
to be found, in the search for uniform concepts to solve problems
containing elements which are significantly dissimilar. The con-
ceptual apparatus which has been built up for these purposes is
formidable and confusing. Thus it is said that the effects of a
breach depend (at least sometimes) on whether it is “ fundamental ”
or ‘‘ goes to the root of the contract ”; on whether it “ substan-
tially ” deprives a party of what he contracted for; on whether
promises are ‘‘ independent ” or “ concurrent ”; on whether the
performance of one party’s promise is a ‘‘ condition precedent ” to
the liability of the other; or on whether the breach is one of ‘‘ con-
dition ” or only one of ‘‘ warranty.” N o doubt this kind of
analysis corresponds with, and is therefore necessitated by, the
language of the relevant cases and statutes. These materials have
been subjected to much acute and illuminating discussion’; and
there would be no point in adding to this. The object of this
article is rather to consider, in the context of the proposal to codify
the law of contract, whether a new approach can be made to these
problems, free from the vague and obscure conceptualism of the
present law, and based more directly on practical considerations.
This will involve in the first place an emphasis on the distinct
nature of the problems which may arise from defective perform-
ance ; secondly, a discussion of the practical effects of possible
remedies; and finally a discussion of the respective interests of the
parties in using (or in resisting the use of) one particular remedy as
opposed to another. It cannot of course be pretended that such an
approach will remove the difficulties of deciding individual cases in
a field which is “ characterised by indefinite gradations.” la But
this article will have amply served its purpose if it diverts discussion
of this subject from its present conceptual plane to a more practical
level.
1. DIFFERENT
“ RESCISSION
” SITUATIONS
14 See 43 Harv.L.Rev. 647. Merchant Shipping Act 1894, 8. 156 (reversing the
common law rule that “ freight is the mother of wages ”) appears to be based
in part of the same policy.
1s Thus in Boone V. Eyre (1785) 1 H.B1. 273n. Lord Mansfield stressed the
relatively unimportant nature of the defect; while Ashhurst J. in another
report (2 W.Bl. 1312, 1314 n.(t)) 8180 stressed th86 fact that the contract was
executed.
10 Ritchie V. Atkinson (1808)10 East. 295.
11 I n Clark v. West, 193 N.Y. 549, 86 N.E. 1 (1908) a;: author undertook “ to
totally abstain from the use of intoxicating liquor while writing a legal
textbook. The publishers undertook to pay him $2 per page plus an additional
$4 per page if he abstained. The author drank in moderation while writing
the book but the publishers knew this and did not object. Held, they had
waived the stipulation and were liable to pa9 $6 per page.
18 “ The simple and the u n e r m will call for different remedies from the multi-
farious and the intricate : per Cardozo J. in Jacob a? Young8 V. Kent, 129
N.E. 889, 890 (1921).
10 [1898] 1 Q.B. a t p. 673.
23 See Scrutton, Charterpartiee, 17th ed., 8 8 . 144-146 for a full statement of the
law on these points and for the supporting authorities.
MAR. 1967 SOME PROBLEMS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT 143
2. EFFECTS
OF REMEDIES
It is necessary to turn to remedies for defective performance. Here
“ remedies ” will be used in a broad sense to include a number of
possible courses of action (or inaction) which the party who wishes
to complain of defective performance may wish to take. These
include (1) legal action for damages; (2) refusal to perform, either
a t all or in accordance with the contract; ( 8 ) the return of the
defectively rendered performance or the refusal to accept it; and
(4) a legal action to recover back the performance already rendered.
The problem is to determine how the choice between these remedies
should be made. The general aim obviously should be to give the
innocent party the remedy which best protects his interests, so
long as this causes no undue hardship to the other party and is
not objectionable on other policy grounds. It is of course tempting
to stop here and so to leave the whole problem to the discretion of
the But it is unsatisfactory to give judges, and more
particularly lawyers advising clients, 80 little guidance.2s Two
important questions require careful investigation. What practical
effects will result from the grant of one remedy rather than the
other? What interest has one party in seeking (and the other in
resisting) one remedy rather than another? Where the agreed
performance is still physically possible, and the issue is between
specific performance and damages, these questions are a t any rate
raised in the discussions on the subject. Thus in suits for specific
performance the courts consider such factors as the cc adequacy ’’
of damages, though their views on this matter may be open to
But where the issue is between damages and (‘rescis-
sion ” (which also sometimes provides a kind of specific relief) the
question whether damages are an ‘(adequate ” remedy is hardly
ever squarely raised in the modern English cases on the subject.28
I n some of the nineteenth-century cases these problems were
approached in a much more satisfactory way, and this approach still
prevails in some common law jurisdictions. In Bradford v.
Williams 28 a charterer broke a time charterparty by failing to
provide cargo as agreed. It was held that the shipowner was
justified in throwing up the charterparty, as (‘no cross-action for
damages would have fully compensated him.”80 Such a cross-
claim might be defeated by proof that he had failed to mitigate the
loss; and he might find it difficult to secure substitute employment
23 Cf. Corbin, Contracts, 8. 691: “ I n ;he final analysis, the decision is not B
matter of law but one of conscience (Vol. 3A, p. 329) and ibid. at p. 248:
such questions are to be decided “ on the basiia of what the court thinks
justice requires.”
26 Cf. Wolff, 16 Cornell L.Q. 180 (1930).
2: For the present writer’s views on this question, see [1966] J.B.L. 211.
28 An exception is Maple Flock Co. Ltd. 9. Unimemal Furniture Products
(Wembley) Ltd. [1934] 1 K.B. 148.
29 (1872)L.R. 7 Ex. 259.
80 At p. 269.
MAR.1967 SOME PROBLEMS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT 145
for his ship for precisely the period during which the charterer
remained in breach. On the other hand in Simpson v. Crippin 81
it was held that a seller of coal by instalments was not entitled to
repudiate on the ground that the buyer had not, in the f i s t month,
collected the agreed monthly quantity. Blackburn J. said: ‘‘NO
sufficient reason has been urged why damages would not be a
compensation for the breach by the plaintiffs ’’ 32 (i.e., the buyers).
The approach of these two cases is entirely practical; the decisions
are based on the effectiveness of damages as a remedy 33 and not on
vague concepts such as the ‘‘ root ’’ of a contract. The same
practical approach explains the distinction between the two leading
cases of Bettini v. Gye 34 and Poussard v. Spiers,S5though the more
quotable parts of the judgments have obscured this fact.36 The
main reasons why the impresario in the f i s t case was not justified
in throwing up the contract was that the singer’s breach caused him
little prejudice, while the singer had, on the other hand, kept him-
self idle for three months in reliance on the agreement.3T But in
Poussard v. Spiers, the impresario was in precisely the sort of
difficulty which confronted the shipowner in Bradford v. Williams :
for how long, if held to the contract, should he hire a substitute? 38
In the books, the tendency is to lay stress largely on Blackburn J.’s
general statements, involving the well-known references to breaches
“ going to the root ” 89 of the contract; but it is submitted that
the practical considerations leading to the decisions deserve much
greater stress than they usually receive.
The discussion of the practical issues involved in these cases is,
it is submitted, along the right lines, though it may sometimes be
brief or even cryptic.qo It is not always clear just what factors the
judges had in mind when assessing the “ adequacy ” of one remedy
as opposed to another. A somewhat fuller discussion of these
matters may be found in the New York case of Donovan v. Aeolian
C O . ~The~ plaintiff bought from the defendant a piano which was
warranted new. Two years later she decided to resell it, and it was
then discovered that at the time of the original sale to her the piano
was five years old and had been rebuilt. Her action to recover
back the purchase price failed for a number of reasons, one of
which, in the words of Lehman J., was that the previous use of the
piano " affected its market value. It did not affect its tone. The
plaintiff used it as long as she wished. She was damaged only
because she paid for an old piano the price of a piano which was
warranted as new. For these damages she is entitled to compensa-
tion. By choosing the alternative remedy of rescission, the plaintiff
has obtained more than the damages which she has sufiered and
more than she is entitled to receive. "41a ...
The court here is
not concerned with vague concepts or mechanical distinctions, but
solely with the practical effect of granting one remedy rather than
another.
By the way of contrast, reference may be made to two cases
decided in England by one of the strongest Courts of Appeal in
history, consisting of Bankes, Scrutton and Atkin L.JJ. The first
is Re Moore 4 Landauer 42 where a buyer of tins of fruit stated to
be packed in cases of thirty tins each was held entitled to reject
the whole consignment on the ground that half the cases contained
only twenty-four tins each. He was so entitled in spite of the fact
that the seller tendered the whole quantity ordered and in spite of
a finding that there was no difference in value between t i n s packed
in cases of twenty-four and thirty tins. The structure of the judg-
ments of Bankes and Atkin L.JJ. is entirely abstract and " logical."
The term as to packaging was part of the " description " of the
goods within sections 18 and 80 ( 8 ) of the Sale of Goods Act 1898;
accordingly the seller had supplied contract goods mixed with goods
of a different description; hence it followed that the buyer could
reject. Only Scrutton L.J. gives a practical justification for the
result, but even that is hypothetical: " A man who has bought
under a contract thirty tins to the case m a y have sold under the
same description, and m a y be placed in considerable difficulty by
having goods tendered to him which do not comply with the
description undm which he bought or under which he has resold." 48
There was in fact no evidence that anything of this kind had hap-
pened. To repeat the words of Blackburn J. in Simpson v. Crippen,
" No sufficient reason has been urged why damages would not be a
compensation for the breach . . ."
There is not even in the reports
any trace of a " collateral " motive 44 which might explain, even
if it did not justify, the desire of the buyers to reject.
Two years later the same court decided Rowland v. D i ~ a l l . ' ~
This time there is not a single word in any of the judgments which
attempts to correlate the result with the actual loss suffered by
the plaintiff, or, in other words, to determine whether the plaintiff
would as a result of the court's decision obtain " more than the
damages which he has suffered." To show that this is a question
41a 200 N.E. a t p. 817.
-42 rigail a K.B. 519.
4a At p.-525 (italics supplied).
44 e.g., market fluctuations, discussed below.
43 [1923] 2 K.P 500.
3 1 ~ 1967
~ . SOME PROBLEMS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT 147
themselves and then sold it to the plaintiff for €260.”49 Thus it was
the buyer and not the original owner who got the car in the end;
and perhaps the defendant wanted to rely on the figure of €260.
as evidence of the ‘‘value” of the car when it was seized. At
any rate he paid €260 into court49; but the Court of Appeal do
not tell us whether this would be the true measure of damages
for breach of warranty. In view of our ignorance on this vital
point, informed criticism of the actual result seems impossible.
In its Twelfth Report, the Law Reform Committee says 5 0 :
“I f it turns out that the seller has no right to sell, then, as
was decided in Rowland v. Divall ...
, there is a total failure
of consideration and the buyer can recover the full price of the
goods without any set-off for depreciation o r s 1 for any use
or enjoyment he may have had of the goods. We think this
is unjust and that the buyer should be entitled to recover no
more than his actual loss, giving credit for any benefit which
he may have had from the goods while they were in his
possession.”
With respect, the injustice of Rowland v. Divall is by no means
so self-evident that it can simply be asserted without argument ;
but setting that aside, the Committee’s own recommendation is
obscure and may, on some interpretations, create new injustices
and anomalies of its own.
What, for example, is meant by “ actual loss ” ? Does it mean
replacement value or the amount which the plaintiff could have
realised by resale; and for this purpose does it matter whether the
plaintiff is a private user or (as in Rowland v. Divall) a dealer ? Is
cc actual ” loss to be contrasted with, or may it include, conse-
quential loss? Or does it simply mean the loss recoverable in an
action for damages for breach of warranty ? Is ‘(giving credit . . .”
part of the process of assessing ‘(actual loss,” or is the ‘(actual
loss ’’ &st assessed and further credit then given? And for just
what is credit to be given? The f i s t of the two sentences quoted
in the last paragraph refers to two quite separate elements for
which there is not ‘(set-off ’) under the existing law: namely
depreciation ’) and c c use or enjoyment.” According to the
second of these sentences, credit is to be given “ for any benefit
which [the buyer] may have had from the goods ”: this appears
to refer to ‘‘ use and enjoyment ” without covering depreciation
merely through lapse of time. Yet if credit is to be given for
anything is it not ‘(depreciation ” rather than ‘(benefit ” which
ought to be taken into account? Suppose the car in Rowland v.
Diaall had been a taxi and that the buyer had in the four months
before it was seized made a net profit by its use of €200. Is it
43 129 L.T. 757. We are not told a.nywhere whether there was a “ market ” for
Albert cam.
50 Cmnd. 2958, para. 36.
51 Italics supplied.
MAR. 1967 SOME PROBLEMS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT 149
IN RESCISSION
8. INTERESTS
The foregoing discussion is meant to draw attention to what is, in
the present submission, the crucial issue in this branch of the law :
just what practical interest is at stake when a party seeks ‘‘ rescis-
sion ” of a contract? In some cases (such as Rowland V. Divall)
the problem is simply one of properly quantifying the amount of
monetary recovery. But outright rejection or refusal to pay for
defective performance raises more difficult problems. It calls for a
reconciliation of the clear commercial interests which one party
has in rejection and the other in a c c e p t a n ~ e . ~These
~ interests are
so obvious that they are in danger of being sometimes overlooked.
A buyer who has undertaken to pay cash on delivery will obviously
not want to pay for defective goods and be left to pursue his claim
for damages. Rejection combines, for him, all the advantages of
a specific remedy and self-help; it enables him to avoid the delays
of litigation as well as the risk that the seller’s credit may fail. If
the sale is on credit, the buyer’s interest in rejection is less strong,
since the damages can be set off against the price.53 But even here
an innocent party who wants to determine his precise liability
without recourse to legal proceedings runs the risk of quantifying
his damages wrongly; and he may also be prejudiced if some of
the loss he suffers as a result of having to accept defective
performance is regarded as too remote.
On the other hand, the party in breach may have equally strong
interests in acceptance: for example if the market has fallen, if he
has incurred expenses in making the defective performance, or if
the result of that performance has been to enrich the other party.55
52 For an excellent account, see Honnold, 97 0. of Pa.L.Rev. 457.
53 Sale of Goode Act 1893, s. 53 (1) ( a ) . For a similar rule in building contracts,
see Dakin d Go. Ltd. v. Lee [1916] 1 K.B. 566.
55 Restatement, Contracts, 8. 275 (c).
150 THE MODERN L A W REVIEW VOL. a0
The first of these interests will be more fully discussed below; but
at this stage it is worth stressing the distinction between the last
two. The expense of making a defective tender (e.g., at a distant
place) may be considerable but may not enrich the other contracting
party at all. It is obvious, also, that these two interests grow in
importance the further performance has gone.
The problem of reconciling, or compromising between, these
interests is a very difficult and delicate one. Can we, in attempting
to solve it, go beyond the usual generality that it is " unjust " to
compel a person to accept and pay for gomething which differs
" fundamentally " from that for which he bargained? It is sub-
mitted that something more can be said, and that the following
factors are relevant in shaping the law on this subject.
80 (1932)37 Com.Cas. 291, 292; cf. Green V. Amos Ltd. (1931) 39 L1.L.R. 229,
231; Hillas v. Arcos Ltd. (1931)36 Com.Cas. 353, 368.
61 [1933] A.C. 470, 480.
82 For a statutory statement of a similar rule, see Marine Insurance Act 1906,
8. 33 (3).
83 Bowes v. Shand (1877)2 App.Cas. 455.
152 THE MODERN LAW REVIEW VOL. 80
7 7 8.2-609.
7s Buzton v. Lister (1746)3 Atk. 383, 384; c f . Re Schwabacher (1908) 98 L.T.
147 where specific performance of a contract for the sale of shares was
refused on this ground.
MAR.1967 SOME PROBLEMS OF BREACH OF CONTRACT 155