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Questions On ' Promises Qua Promises '

Satisfactory Essays

Student I.D: 1470747
Module: Contract Law

Word Count: 1997

Promises qua promises can be regarded as contractual obligations implying a moral obligation to keep promises and the law is justified in enforcing those obligations by way of damages in-order to protect the underlying rights and interests. This article aims to illustrate how this is achieved by analysing two of these interests identified by Fuller and Purdue (hereafter Fuller)1 as the expectation and reliance interests and considers their relation. It shall be argued that the expectation interest is the main purpose of contracting and therefore should be accorded primary protection and that Fuller’s glorification of reliance interest was misguided. I begin by …show more content…

[1848] 1 Exh 850, 855 (Parke B)
3. E Finch, S Fafinski, Contract Law: Law Express (Harlow, 2010) 195
4. [1967] UKHL 4
5. [1955] Ch 177
6. [1957] 2 QB 117
7. Ibid [n3]
8. M Chen-Wishart, Contract Law (4th Ed, Oxford 2012) Chap 13

Questions often arise whether to base the calculation of damages on actual or market value 9. Although this shows flexibility, my criticism is that this can lead to inconsistencies, reduce certainty and predictability in judicial decisions as in Ruxley. 10 The claimant contracted the defendant to construct a swimming pool with a depth of 7ft 6in but the finished pool was 6ft 9in. The COC was £21500 but the claimant had no intention of using the damages to correct the defect. Nominal damages of £2500 were awarded for loss of amenity. The court held that where the DIV caused by the breach was zero, it was not correct to award the COC as an alternative to the DIV. Lord Lloyd stated that, although what Forsyth intended to do with the money was irrelevant, but was certainly relevant in determining the appropriate measure of that loss. This was fundamentally different from a performance based-approach to losses and akin to the judiciary imposing its own interests on the claimant’s expectations. Contrast this with the Radford 11 where the COC awarded yet was substantially higher than DIV.
A welcome development is recovery of consequential losses subject to remoteness12 as established in Hadley v

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