Damages For Breach of Contracts - Compensation Vendication

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2008), pp.
73–98
doi:10.1093/ojls/gqm023
Published Advance Access January 17, 2008
Damages for Breach of Contract:

Compensation, Restitution
and Vindication
Downloaded from http://ojls.oxfordjournals.org/ at Universiteit van Amsterdam on September 29, 2016

DAVID PEARCE AND ROGER HALSON*
Abstract—In this article we examine the role which vindication plays in contract
damages. Vindication describes the making good of a right by the award of an
adequate remedy. We argue that, while the primary purpose of compensation is to
provide an indemnity for loss, an award of compensatory damages will nevertheless
generally vindicate the right to performance of the contract. We go on to consider a
distinct measure of damages, vindicatory damages. These, we argue, are neither
compensatory nor restitutionary, neither loss-based nor gain-based: they are a
rights-based remedy. We then identify various situations in which the courts may be
seen to have awarded what are, in substance, vindicatory damages. We conclude by
considering the benefits which may follow from recognition of the availability of
vindicatory damages as a contract remedy.
1. Introduction
‘The function of the law is to enable rights to be vindicated and to provide
remedies when duties have been breached.’1 Vindication describes the making
good of the claimant’s legal right by the grant of an adequate remedy. Unless
an infringed right is met with an adequate remedy, the right is ‘a hollow one,
stripped of all practical force and devoid of all content’.2 As society becomes
more rights-focused and English law more rights-based,3 the vindicatory
function is set to become increasingly relevant. The broad purpose of this
article is to explore the extent to which the English courts pursue a vindicatory
function when awarding damages for breach of contract. We begin by
* Lecturer and Professor of Law, respectively, at the University of Leeds. Email: [email protected].
We would like to thank Professor Andrew Burrows, Horton Rogers and our two anonymous referees for their
helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. The usual disclaimer applies.
1
Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41, [2005] 1 AC 134 at [87] (Lord Hope of Craighead).
2
Ibid.
3
The obvious example is the Human Rights Act 1998.
ß The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions,
please e-mail: [email protected]
74 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies VOL. 28
distinguishing the primary right to performance from the secondary right to

compensation, and then show that nominal damages are an ineffective means of
vindicating the performance right. We go on to argue, however, that while an
award of substantial damages for breach of contract represents the enforcement
of the defendant’s duty to compensate, the remedy nevertheless provides an
effective means of making good the claimant’s performance right. This is
because of the way in which the courts measure loss. The second argument we
put forward is that, in certain situations, the vindicatory impulse exerts a more
radical influence on the availability of contractual remedies. In these cases, the

courts conclude that the application of orthodox compensatory principles
would yield an inadequate response to the defendant’s breach of contract.
In order to ensure that the claimant’s right to performance is made good, the
court awards substantial damages4 notwithstanding that on conventional
principles the claimant can only claim nominal damages. An important char-
acteristic of these awards is that, while exceptional, they are nevertheless
intended to be compensatory.5 Our third argument is that in some situations,
a remedial response to a breach of contract may take the form of an award of
vindicatory, as distinct from compensatory,6 damages. Vindicatory damages are
neither loss-based nor gain-based: they are a rights-based remedy. As such,
vindicatory damages are not measured by the claimant’s loss or the defendant’s
gain. Instead they comprise a fair and reasonable or, in some cases, conven-
tional sum which is intended to provide a ‘measure of recognition’7 of the
violation of the claimant’s performance right. Vindicatory damages are a gap-
filling remedy. In most cases, the claimant’s performance right will be made
good by an award of compensatory damages or by specific relief. It is only
where these orthodox remedies would constitute an inadequate curial response
to a breach of contract that vindicatory damages will become relevant. In our
conclusion we argue that a broader recognition of vindicatory damages may
ensure fairer outcomes for both claimants and defendants. As well as providing
a just remedy in suitable cases, vindicatory damages offer a further benefit, as
at present the concept of loss in English contract law is at risk of being over-
stretched. Extending the availability of vindicatory damages to contractual
actions would provide a more accurate explanation of the remedy awarded in
certain cases and would help to preserve the coherence of the conventional
remedies of compensation and restitution.
4
Or an account of profits: see Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268, below.
5
Some argue that these awards are restitutionary on the ground that they are gain-based, while others
maintain that gain-based awards remain compensatory. Our concern here is not so much to distinguish
compensatory from restitutionary damages, it is more to distinguish rights-based damages from both loss-based
and gain-based damages.
6
Or restitutionary: see n 5 above.
7
See Rees v Darlington Memorial Hospital NHS Trust [2003] UKHL 52, [2004] 1 AC 309 at [8] (Lord
Bingham of Cornhill).
SPRING 2008 Damages for Breach of Contract 75
2. Compensation and Vindication

A. The Right to Performance
To understand the vindicatory function in contract, it is important to recognize
that each party to a bilateral, or synallagmatic, contract acquires ‘a legal right to
the performance of the contract’8 and, at the same time, ‘assumes a legally
recognized and enforceable obligation to perform’ it.9 For ‘the purpose of
contract is performance’.10 Pacta sunt servanda. Liability in contract may be

contrasted with that imposed in the tort of negligence. The obligation in negli-
gence is ‘an obligation to compensate the claimant against loss which was a
reasonably foreseeable consequence of [the defendant’s] carelessness’.11 Liability
in negligence is founded ‘not on the act but on the consequences’ of the act.12
‘There is no free standing obligation or duty of care.’13 Liability in contract, by
contrast, is founded on the act of agreement.14 The most obvious means of
vindicating the claimant’s right to performance of the contract is to order the
defendant to perform. Where the relevant obligation is to convey an interest in
land, refrain from doing something, or pay a sum of money, the English courts will
generally vindicate the claimant’s corresponding right by specific performance,
prohibitory injunction, or judgment for the fixed sum. But specific relief,
particularly in the form of specific performance or mandatory injunction,
nevertheless remains the exception rather than the rule in contract. While the
vindicatory function may be becoming increasingly evident, the decision of the
House of Lords in Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd v Argyll Stores (Holdings)
Ltd15 suggests a reluctance to expand the availability of specific relief in contract
generally. In English law the ‘presumption’ remains that any breach of contract
will result in an obligation on the defaulting party to pay damages.16
B. The Demise of Nominal Damages

It might be thought that in nominal damages the court already has at
its disposal a tailor-made remedy for vindicating the performance right
8
Alley v Deschamps (1806) 13 Ves Jun 25 at 27–28 (Lord Erskine).
9
In Re T & N Ltd [2006] 1 WLR 1728 at [26] (David Richards J).
10
George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd v Finney Lock Seeds Ltd [1983] QB 284 at 304 (Oliver LJ). Friedmann
describes the claimant’s interest in performance as constituting ‘the very core of contract law’: D. Friedmann
‘The Performance Interest in Contract Damages’ (1995) 111 LQR 628–654 at 654.
11
12
Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock and Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound) [1961] AC 388 at 425
(Viscount Simonds).
13
14
This distinction has been acted upon by the House of Lords in the context of an award of interest on
damages (Nykredit Mortgage Bank plc v Edward Erdman Group Ltd (No 2) [1997] 1 WLR 1627) and, more
recently, with regard to the date of accrual of a cause of action for limitation purposes (Law Society v Sephton &
Co [2006] UKHL 22, [2006] 2 AC 543).
15
[1998] AC 1.
16
George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd v Finney Lock Seeds Ltd [1983] QB 284 at 304 (Oliver LJ).
in contract.17 For nominal damages are ‘not intended to compensate for

anything at all’ but are awarded simply ‘to mark the fact that there has been a
breach of contract’.18 But it soon becomes apparent that nominal damages
offer little hope of making good the claimant’s performance right. First,
nominal damages have limited relevance in contractual claims in practice.19
While nominal damages may be used as a means of establishing a legal right,
they will generally be so used in the context of proprietary, and not personal,
rights.20 In any event, the availability of the declaration has rendered this aspect
of nominal damages increasingly redundant.21 Furthermore, there are signs

that the ‘main purpose’22 of nominal damages, that of acting as a peg on which
to hang costs, has been undermined by the courts’ reluctance to adopt in
mechanical fashion the principle that costs follow the event where that event is
no more than the award of nominal damages. In Anglo-Cyprian Trade Agencies
Ltd v Paphos Wine Industries Ltd23 Devlin J, having noted the general rule that a
successful claimant will recover his costs from the defendant, nevertheless
ordered the claimant to pay the defendant’s costs: ‘I do not think that a plaintiff
who recovers nominal damages ought necessarily to be regarded in the ordinary
sense of the word as a ‘‘successful’’ plaintiff.’24
Nominal damages may be seen to lack a vindicatory element in another way.
An award of a pound or two25 is unlikely in itself to provide adequate
satisfaction for the fact that a wrong has been committed.26 An award of
nominal damages differs little, if at all, from an award of derisory, or
contemptuous, damages. Derisory damages serve to indicate that, while the
17
Thus Lord Scott, speaking extra-judicially, describes the purpose of nominal damages as ‘vindicatory’: Lord
Scott of Foscote, ‘Damages’ [2007] LMCLQ 465–473, 469.
18
Mappouras v Waldrons [2002] EWCA Civ 842 at [15] (Kay LJ).
19
See, e.g. Treitel where nominal damages merit treatment of less than half-a-dozen lines in the main text:
E. Peel, Treitel on the Law of Contract (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 12th edn, 2007) at para 20-002. Chitty
discusses nominal damages in a single paragraph: H. Beale (gen ed), Chitty on Contracts (London: Sweet &
Maxwell, 29th edn, 2004) at para 26-008.
20
H. McGregor, McGregor on Damages (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 17th edn, 2003) at para 10-009.
21
Thus, Burrows who, having noted the function of the declaration, concludes that nominal damages ‘are
superfluous and could happily be abolished’: A. Burrows, Remedies for Torts and Breach of Contract (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2004) at 589.
22
See McGregor, above n 20 at para 10-009.
23
[1951] 1 All ER 873.
24
Ibid at 874 (Devlin J). See also Mappouras v Waldrons [2002] EWCA Civ 842, Excelsior Commercial &
Industrial Holdings Ltd v Salisbury Hamer Aspden and Johnson [2002] EWCA Civ 879 and Clarke v Buckle Mellows
[2005] EWCA Civ 1611.
25
There seems to be little consistency in the amount of an award of nominal damages: awards of £1, £2, £5,
£10 and £15 can all be found in the cases. In Liverpool City Council v Irwin [1977] AC 239 at 264 and 270, the
House of Lords reduced the nominal damages awarded by the County Court judge from £10 to £5. In the Court
of Appeal, Roskill LJ had thought that the proper figure was £2 ([1976] QB 319 at 333). In Radford v
De Froberville [1977] 1 WLR 1262 at 1268 Oliver J assumed nominal damages to be the decimal equivalent of
40 shillings. This figure may have its origins in the practice of the royal courts in the thirteenth century to exclude
claims for less than that amount: see J. H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (London: Butterworths,
4th edn, 2002) at 22.
26
In Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268 at 283, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead commented that if
the claimants in Wrotham Park had only been awarded nominal damages, justice would manifestly not have
been done.
claimant’s right has been infringed, the court has a very low opinion of the
claim, or takes the view that the claimant ‘deserved, at any rate morally, what
the defendant did to him.’27 In theory, then, nominal and derisory damages
serve different purposes. In practice, it can be hard to distinguish between the
two. For example, in Grobbelaar v News Group Newspapers Ltd,28 the House of
Lords unanimously substituted an award of £1 damages in place of the jury’s
award of £85,000. This was explicitly labelled an award of nominal damages,29
yet there can be little doubt as to their Lordships’ views as to the merits of the
case. Lord Bingham said it would be an ‘affront to justice . . . to award sub-

stantial damages to a man shown to have acted in such flagrant breach of his
legal and moral obligations’.30 Both Lord Steyn and Lord Millett described the
award as ‘derisory’.31
Far from fulfilling a vindicatory function, nominal damages today may
indicate a lack of any substantive merit in the claimant’s case. ‘A plaintiff who
recovers only nominal damages has in reality lost and in reality the defendant
has established a complete defence.’32 Such an approach calls into question
the continuing presence of nominal damages in the courts’ remedial armoury,
a fact explicitly envisaged in Ibekwe v TGWU.33 In that case, Peter Gibson
LJ thought it might be ‘well within’ the court’s discretion under the
Civil Procedure Rules to stop a case where it became clear that the claimant
would only recover nominal damages.34 The court had to ‘avoid incurring
unnecessary costs and taking up a disproportionate amount of’ its own time.35
C. The Different Functions of Compensatory Damages

The principal aim of an award of compensatory damages is, of course, to
compensate the claimant for loss suffered,36 but the objective has never been to
provide a precise indemnity. This indicates that compensation is not the sole
function of damages in contract. So, for example, the rules on remoteness and
mitigation may result in a claimant recovering less in damages than the amount of
‘loss’ suffered. On the other hand, an award of damages may exceed this amount.
Thus the factory-owner in Harbutt’s ‘Plasticine’ Ltd v Wayne Tank and Pump Co
Ltd37 was awarded damages sufficient to enable him to build a new factory
27
W. V. H. Rogers, Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 17th edn, 2006) at para 22–6.
28
[2002] UKHL 40, [2002] 1 WLR 3024.
29
Ibid at [27] (Lord Bingham), [61] (Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough) and [87] (Lord Scott).
30
Ibid at [24].
31
Ibid at [36] and [69], respectively.
32
Hyde Park Residence Ltd v Yelland [1999] RPC 655 at [36]–[37].
33
[2001] EWCA Civ 432.
34
Ibid at [26].
35
Ibid.
36
Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd [2001] 1 AC 518 at 580 (Lord Millett). See generally
E. McKendrick ‘Breach of Contract and the Meaning of Loss’ [1999] Current Legal Problems 37.
37
[1970] 1 QB 447.
superior to that destroyed by the defendant’s breach. In yet other cases the
damages awarded may bear no relation to the actual loss suffered. In Cory v
Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co Ltd38 the claimant recovered damages
for profits lost by not being able to use the subject matter of the contract,
a boom derrick, as a coal store. However, the claimant had never intended to
use the derrick in that way: his intended use gave rise to much higher losses,
but losses which were too remote to be recoverable.39 Where a contract contains
a liquidated damages clause, it is perhaps inevitable, given the limited foresight
of contractors, that the stipulated sum will either under-compensate or

over-compensate the innocent party.40 There are also instances where the
court’s desire to vindicate the performance right means that general damages
are awarded for pecuniary loss.41
A further limit upon the recovery of full compensation may be seen to arise
from the decision in South Australia Asset Management Corp v York Montague
Ltd.42 There, surveyors employed by mortgagees had negligently overvalued
commercial property to the extent that when, following the mortgagor’s
default, the security was realized, the proceeds of sale were insufficient to
discharge the outstanding debt. The House of Lords held that the negligent
surveyors were not automatically liable for the entire shortfall. Rather, they
were only liable in respect of the extent to which they had overvalued
the premises; in so far as the mortgagees’ losses exceeded this ‘initial security
shortfall’ the losses were irrecoverable. The SAAMCO principle, that
‘a defendant is not liable in damages in respect of losses of a kind that fall
outside the scope of his duty of care’,43 has subsequently been applied
widely to contractual and tortious duties of care owed by valuers and other
professionals.44
That compensation serves other ends is, in fact, widely accepted. Lord
Wilberforce asked of a man bringing an action for damages in tort:
Is he suing for compensation, for injury to his feelings, to teach his opponent a lesson,
to vindicate his rights, or ‘the strength of the law’, or for a mixture of these
things? . . . The fact is that the plaintiff sues for damages, inviting the court to take all
the facts into consideration, and, if he wins, he may ascribe his victory to all or any of
the ingredients.45
38
(1868) LR 3 QB 181.
39
Ibid at 189–92.
40
For an example of under-compensation, see, eg, Diestal v Stevenson [1906] 2 KB 345.
41
See, e.g. Aerial Advertising Co v Batchelors Peas Ltd (Manchester) [1938] 2 All ER 788.
42
[1997] AC 191.
43
Aneco Reinsurance Underwriting Ltd (in liquidation) v Johnson and Higgins Ltd [2001] UKHL 51, [2002]
1 Lloyd’s Rep 157 at [10] (Lord Lloyd of Berwick).
44
See, e.g. HOK Sport Ltd v Aintree Racecourse Co Ltd [2002] EWHC 3094 (TCC), [2003] Lloyd’s Rep PN
148. Cf Aneco Reinsurance Underwriting Ltd (in liquidation) v Johnson and Higgins Ltd [2001] UKHL 51, [2002]
1 Lloyd’s Rep 157.
45
Cassell & Co Ltd v Broome [1972] AC 1027 at 1115.
Compensatory damages, it is suggested, serve various secondary functions such
as punishment, deterrence and appeasement.46 Of more immediate relevance
is their capacity to fulfil a vindicatory role. Such a role is well established in
the context of libel damages. As well as compensating the claimant for his
pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses, libel damages must be sufficient to
vindicate the claimant’s reputation.47 As Windeyer J observed:
It seems to me that, properly speaking, a man defamed does not get compensation for
his damaged reputation. He gets damages because he was injured in his reputation,
that is simply because he was publicly defamed. For this reason, compensation by

damages operates in two ways – as a vindication of the plaintiff to the public and as
consolation to him for a wrong done.48
There is no reason in principle why compensatory damages in contract should
not likewise fulfil a vindicatory purpose.
D. The Vindicatory Function of Compensatory Damages

Indeed the practice of the courts demonstrates that an award of compensation
for breach of contract does serve this very purpose. Contractual damages are
generally awarded so as to protect the claimant’s expectation interest, to give
him the benefit of the bargain: the claimant ‘is, so far as money can do it, to be
placed in the same situation with respect to damages as if the contract had been
performed.’49 The primacy of this measure of damages for breach of contract is
reflected by its description as the ‘contract measure’.50 This may be contrasted
with the objective in tort, where the court awards damages so as to put the
claimant ‘in the same position as he would have been in if he had not sustained
the wrong’.51 Contractual damages vindicate the performance right: they
put the claimant in the same position as if the defendant had performed
46
See the dissenting judgment of Thomas J in Daniels v Thompson [1998] 3 NZLR 22. In The Gleaner Co Ltd v
Abrahams [2003] UKPC 55, [2004] 1 AC 628 at [41] Lord Hoffmann noted that ever since Rookes v Barnard
[1964] AC 1129 ‘it has been recognised that compensatory damages may also have a punitive, deterrent or
exemplary function’. In Merest v Harvey (1814) 5 Taunt 442 at 444, Heath J thought that an award of exemplary
damages ‘goes to prevent the practice of duelling’.
47
See The Gleaner Co Ltd v Abrahams [2003] UKPC 55, [2004] 1 AC 628 at [55] (Lord Hoffmann).
Vindication of the claimant’s reputation does not always call for an award of damages: a ‘reasoned judgment’ may
suffice: see Rackham v Sandy [2005] EWHC 482 (QB) at [124] (Gray J).
48
Uren v John Fairfax & Sons Pty Ltd (1966) 117 CLR 118 at 150.
49
Robinson v Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850 at 855 (Parke B). Thus Street comments: ‘the law is not content
to indemnify the plaintiff for losses suffered; it gives him what he would have had if the defendant had not
wrongfully broken his contract’: H. Street, Principles of the Law of Damages (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1962)
at 240.
50
Nykredit Mortgage Bank plc v Edward Erdman Group Ltd (No 2) [1997] 1 WLR 1627 at 1634 (Lord
Nicholls). In Wertheim v Chicoutimi Pulp Co [1911] AC 301 at 307 this measure was described by Lord Atkinson
as the ‘ruling principle’ of contract damages.
51
Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 25 at 39 (Lord Blackburn).
his promise. Fuller and Perdue famously described damages based on the
expectation interest as a ‘queer kind’ of compensation.52 For, they argued,
the loss which the plaintiff suffers (deprivation of the expectancy) is not a datum of
nature but the reflection of a normative order. It appears as a ‘loss’ only by reference
to an unstated ought. Consequently, when the law gauges damages by the value of the
promised performance it is not merely measuring a quantum, but is seeking an end,
however vaguely conceived this end may be.53
The end that the law seeks is the fulfilment of promises:54 damages based on

the expectation interest seek to vindicate the claimant’s performance right.
This vindicatory element shaping the duty to compensate is evident not just
in the law’s recognition and enforcement of the expectation interest itself, but
also in the way the expectation interest is measured. Where the defendant’s
performance of the contract is defective but the claimant is not entitled to, or
does not, reject that performance, there are two principal methods of assessing
the claimant’s damages.55 The first is the difference in value between the
performance for which the claimant contracted and the performance received.
The second is the cost of curing the defective performance, so that the claimant
may obtain the performance for which he contracted. Where the claimant’s
interest in performance is financial, the difference in value measure will
generally be adopted by the court. Where his interest lies in ‘performance of
the quality, type or standard promised by the defendant’,56 the court is more
likely to adopt the cost of cure measure. The cost of cure measure is widely
seen as more consistent with enforcement of the performance right,57 and
the courts’ reliance on the difference in value measure has been said to
demonstrate a ‘less than whole-hearted’ commitment to the protection of the
performance interest.58 McKendrick argues that ‘there is more to the law of
contract than the protection of financial interests’ and that damages
should no longer be tied to putting the claimant into the financial position which he
would have been in had the contract been performed, but instead should aim to give
the claimant an appropriate substitute for the performance to which she was entitled.59
52
L. Fuller and W. Perdue ‘The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages’ (1936) 46 Yale LJ 52–96 at 53.
53
Ibid.
54
In Farley v Skinner [2001] UKHL 49, [2002] 2 AC 732 at [25], Lord Steyn described contract law’s
central purpose as ‘promoting the observance of contractual promises’.
55
E. McKendrick, Contract Law: Text, Cases, and Materials (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2005)
at 1017.
56
Ibid at 1050.
57
See, e.g. B. Coote ‘Contract Damages, Ruxley, and the Performance Interest’ (1997) 56 CLJ 537–570;
Friedmann, above n 10; E. McKendrick ‘The Common Law at Work: the Saga of Alfred McAlpine Construction
Ltd v Panatown Ltd’ (2003) 3 OUCLJ 145–180; and C. Webb ‘Performance and Compensation: An Analysis of
Contract Damages and Contractual Obligation’ (2006) 26 OJLS 41–71.
58
McKendrick, above n 55 at 1017.
59
McKendrick, above n 57 at 168 and 172.
Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that contract damages do generally
serve a vindicatory role. Often, the claimant’s interest in performance will be
financial, so difference in value damages will be adequate to make good his
performance right.60 In other cases, difference in value may be the only means
of measuring damages as it may not be possible or practical for the defective
performance to be remedied.61 Furthermore, it is clear that the court will not
always apply the difference in value measure where the claimant’s interest in
performance may be seen as financial. Take, as an example, Radford v De
Froberville62 where the claimant sought damages for the defendant’s failure to

build a wall along the boundary dividing their respective properties. The
claimant’s property was let to tenants and Oliver J accepted that the claimant
was ‘realistically, merely a landlord with an investment property’.63 While this
would point to difference in value as being the appropriate measure of loss,
Oliver J preferred cost of cure, invoking the general principle that pacta sunt
servanda.64 The claimant ‘had a contractual right to have the work done’ and
wanted the wall built.65 Where a claimant contracts for something and the
defendant fails in breach of contract to supply that thing, Oliver J did ‘not see
why, in principle, [the claimant] should not be compensated by being provided
with the cost of supplying it through someone else or in a different way’.66
Radford demonstrates that, when awarding compensation, the court is doing
more than simply making good a loss. Where awarding the difference in value
will make good the performance right, that measure will be adopted. But where
that right will only be satisfied by getting the very thing contracted for, the
court will award cost of cure damages.67
3. The Reach of the Vindicatory Impulse

Thus far, the role of the vindicatory function has been secondary to the
primary compensatory objective. Yet in some exceptional cases the vindicatory
function is more prominent and has a more radical effect. The desire to award
damages which make good the claimant’s performance right may justify a
60
For example, where the claimant intends to dispose of the subject-matter of the contract to a sub-buyer at a
profit, damages assessed by the difference in value measure should generally vindicate the claimant’s performance
right. In fact, such damages might give the claimant a ‘windfall’ gain: see Slater v Hoyle & Smith Ltd [1920] 2 KB 11.
Cf Bence Graphics International Ltd v Fasson UK Ltd [1988] QB 87 at 102 where Auld LJ thought that the time had
come for Slater’s case to be reconsidered. See also the discussion in Transfield Shipping Inc v Mercator Shipping Inc,
The Achilleas [2006] EWHC 3030 (Comm), [2007] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 19 at [82]–[89] (Christopher Clarke J).
61
See A. I. Ogus, The Law of Damages (London, Butterworths, 1973) at 336.
62
[1977] 1 WLR 1262.
63
Ibid at 1285.
64
Ibid at 1270.
65
Ibid at 1285.
66
Ibid at 1270. This was, however, ‘subject to the proviso, of course, that he is seeking compensation for
a genuine loss and not merely using a technical breach to secure an uncovenanted profit’ (ibid).
67
Unless cost of cure damages would be unreasonable or oppressive: see Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd
v Forsyth [1996] 1 AC 344, below.
departure from conventional compensatory principles. Take the extension of

the Dunlop v Lambert68 principle to building contracts. Dunlop has been
described as probably the only true exception to the general rule of English law
that in an action for breach of contract a claimant may only recover substantial
damages for loss which he himself has suffered.69 The rule in Dunlop, as
interpreted by Lord Diplock in The Albazero,70 ‘allows a consignor of goods to
recover from the carrier in full in respect of loss or damage to the goods in
transit even though he has parted with all property in the goods before they are
lost or damaged and thus suffers no loss’.71 In St Martins Property Corporation

Ltd v Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, this principle was applied so as to allow a
developer to recover substantial damages, representing repair costs, for breach
of a building contract, in circumstances where the developer had, before the
breach of contract occurred, transferred its interest in the land being developed
to a third party.72
The approach in St Martin’s, and in the subsequent case of Darlington
Borough Council v Wiltshier Northern Ltd,73 represents a significant extension of
the Dunlop principle, an extension which demonstrates the increasing will-
ingness of the courts to assert the law’s vindicatory function. In the carriage of
goods scenario, from which the Dunlop principle arises, ‘it is the loss to the
proprietary or possessory interest that is compensated, not some other or
different economic loss’.74 The essence of the Dunlop principle is compensation
for the diminution in value of an asset. It involves the enforcement of the
claimant’s contractual rights so as to compensate a third party for a diminution
in the value of the third party’s assets brought about by the defendant’s wrong.
The object, therefore, of the Dunlop principle is the vindication of the third
party’s property rights.75 In contrast, in St Martin’s, the damages did not relate
to loss to the proprietary or possessory interest, that is, to any diminution in the
value of the third party’s assets. The damages related to the expectation interest
created by the contract. They represented compensation for the failure to
enhance the value of certain assets in the manner bargained for by the
claimant. The damages in St Martin’s cannot be said to represent the
68
(1839) 6 Cl & F 600. This case itself provides evidence of the vindicatory function in contract: the claimant
recovers substantial damages for a loss which he had not suffered.
69
Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd [2001] 1 AC 518 at 582 (Lord Millett).
70
[1977] AC 774 at 847.
71
Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd [2001] 1 AC 518 at 582 (Lord Millett). The consignor
must account to the consignee for the damages recovered (ibid).
72
[1994] 1 AC 85 (heard with Linden Gardens Trust Ltd v Lenesta Sludge Disposals Ltd).
73
[1995] 1 WLR 68.
74
Obestain Inc v National Mineral Development Corporation Ltd, The Sanix Ace [1987] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 465 at 469
(Hobhouse J).
75
That the complaint in a contract of carriage case where goods are delivered in a damaged condition or are
delivered late, relates to the underlying property interest in the cargo is demonstrated by the fact that freight
remains payable: no right to an abatement arises. See Colonial Bank v European Grain and Shipping Ltd,
The Dominique [1989] AC 1056 and Linden Gardens Trust Ltd v Lenesta Sludge Disposals Ltd [1994] 1 AC 85 at
111–112 (Lord Browne-Wilkinson).
vindication of the third party’s property rights. The essence of the St Martin’s
principle is the non-enhancement of the value of an asset: that is an economic
interest protected by the law of contract, not a proprietary interest protected
by the law of tort. St Martin’s involves the enforcement by the claimant of his
contractual rights against the defendant so as to compensate, indirectly, a third
party for the non-enhancement of the value of the third party’s assets brought
about by the defendant’s breach of contract.76 In St Martin’s, the court is
vindicating contractual rights.77
In the St Martin’s and Darlington cases, the claimant was in effect able to

recover substantial damages in respect of loss suffered by a third party. The
broad ground adopted by Lord Griffiths in the former case78 and the approach
of the minority in Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd79 treat
the loss as being that of the claimant, rather than of the third party. One
consequence of this distinction is that the claimant would be entitled to
substantial damages, even though the third party itself has a direct cause of
action. But in practice this broader approach may not differ greatly. In
St Martin’s, Lord Griffiths clearly envisaged a situation where the claimant
himself had already incurred the cost of repairs to the third party’s property.80
In Panatown, Lord Goff of Chieveley thought that any damages recovered by
the claimant from the defendant would ‘no doubt’ be applied ‘directly or
indirectly’ to making good the defects in the building.81 In the same case, Lord
Millett thought that the claimant would hold the damages on trust to be
applied at the direction of the group company which had provided the finance
for the construction work.82
The most striking example of the development of the vindicatory function
in contract is the decision of the majority of the House of Lords in Attorney-
General v Blake83 to award an account of profits as a remedy for Blake’s breach
of contract.
In the same way as a plaintiff’s interest in performance of a contract may render it
just and equitable for the court to make an order of specific performance or grant
76
Thus in a building contract, a right to an abatement of the price will arise whether or not the claimant has
retained ownership of the development: see Modern Engineering (Bristol) Ltd v Gilbert-Ash (Northern) Ltd [1974]
AC 689. The breach ‘involves a failure to provide the very goods or services which the defendant had contracted
to supply’: Linden Gardens Trust Ltd v Lenesta Sludge Disposals Ltd [1994] 1 AC 85 at 111–112 (Lord Browne-
Wilkinson).
77
In Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd [2001] 1 AC 518, a bare majority of the House of Lords
held that the St Martin’s principle did not apply to the situation where the third party had its own cause of action
against the defendant. It followed that the claimant was not entitled to substantial damages for the defendant’s
breach of contract.
78
[1994] 1 AC 85 at 96–8.
79
[2001] 1 AC 518.
80
[1994] 1 AC 85 at 96.
81
[2001] 1 AC 518 at 560.
82
Ibid at 592–3.
83
[2001] 1 AC 268.
an injunction, so the plaintiff’s interest in performance may make it just and

equitable that the defendant should retain no benefit from his breach of contract.84
Here the Crown could demonstrate a ‘legitimate interest’ in preventing
Blake’s profit-making activity and depriving him of his profit.85 Blake was an
exceptional case because of the gravity of the breach itself. The content of the
remedial duty, that Blake account for all his profits, was dictated by the value
which the Crown attached to the non-violation of its right to performance
of the confidentiality clause, rather than by reference to the consequences of
the violation of that right. As such it is an outstanding example of the impact of

the vindicatory function.86
4. Vindicatory Damages
A. Infringement of Constitutional Rights
Having sought to establish the vindicatory role of compensatory damages, we
now turn to our second argument: that a distinct measure of damages is being
developed by the courts. Exceptionally, a court may award damages which
are best viewed as neither compensatory nor restitutionary, neither loss-based
nor gain-based. Such damages, vindicatory damages, are rights-based
damages.87 Vindicatory damages have to date only been explicitly recognized
in the field of constitutional rights.88 The Privy Council has acknowledged
that, where a constitutional right has been violated, an award of compensatory
damages may not suffice as the fact that the infringed right is a constitu-
tional right adds an extra dimension.89 In such a case, damages ‘may be
84
Ibid at 285 (Lord Nicholls).
85
Ibid.
86
Albeit one that resulted in an account of profits rather than damages.
87
See Dunlea v Attorney-General [2000] 3 NZLR 136 at [68] where Thomas J speaks of damages under the
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act necessitating a ‘rights-centred approach’.
88
See Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago v Ramanoop [2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328 and Merson
v Cartwright [2005] UKPC 38, [2006] 3 LRC 264. The recognition by the English courts of vindicatory damages
would raise an interesting issue as to their compatibility with damages under the Human Rights Act 1998. The
refusal by the House of Lords in R (on the application of Greenfield) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
[2005] UKHL 14, [2005] 1 WLR 673 to award damages for violation of Article 6 of the Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms may indicate that awards under the Human Rights Act
might be less common and less generous than awards of vindicatory damages. See also A v Head Teacher and
Governors of Lord Grey School [2006] UKHL 14, [2006] 2 AC 363 at [83] (Baroness Hale of Richmond) and the
comments of Lord Millett in Cullen v Chief Constable of the RUC [2003] UKHL 39, [2004] 2 All ER 237 at [82]:
The practice of the European Court is therefore inconsistent with an award of either modest or nominal
damages in a case where neither pecuniary nor non-pecuniary damage is established. It follows that such an
award cannot be justified by a supposed need to deter the authorities of the state or to vindicate a convention
right.
89
Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago v Ramanoop [2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328 at [19].
compensatory but should always be vindicatory’.90 For, as Thomas J observed
in Daniels v Thompson:
Compensation recognises the value attaching to the plaintiff’s interest or right which
is infringed, but it does not place a value on the fact the interest or right ought not to
have been infringed at all.91
In Merson v Cartwright the trial judge, Sawyer J, had awarded the claimant
$100,000 as damages for infringement of her constitutional rights on top of
general damages of $180,000 for assault, battery, false imprisonment and

malicious prosecution. The Privy Council upheld the award of the constitu-
tional damages. The purpose of these damages ‘is to vindicate the right of the
complainant, whether a citizen or a visitor, to carry on his or her life in
the Bahamas free from unjustified executive interference, mistreatment or
oppression.’92 In the earlier case of Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago
v Ramanoop,93 the Privy Council likewise upheld an award of vindicatory
damages made by the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago in respect of
appalling misbehaviour by a police officer towards the claimant. In reaching its
conclusion in Ramanoop, the Privy Council derived ‘particular assistance’94
from the dissenting judgment of Thomas J in Dunlea v Attorney-General.95 In
Dunlea, Thomas J concluded that damages under the New Zealand Bill of
Rights Act 1990 should not be calculated on the same basis as ordinary
tortious damages. In reaching that view, Thomas J drew a distinction between
loss-centred damages and damages which are rights-centred. Generally
damages awarded in tort are loss-centred: the court, Thomas J said, awards
a figure to compensate the claimant for physical damage and mental distress.
But damages under the Bill of Rights Act necessitate ‘a rights-centred approach
based on an understanding of the importance of vindicating the right now
vested in the plaintiff as a citizen’.96 As such, damages under the Act should
include an amount representing the value to the claimant of the non-violation
of the right.97 Vindicatory damages reflect the ‘intrinsic value’ of the infringed
right to the claimant.98
In Ramanoop, Lord Nicholls stated that two aims, among others, of
vindicatory damages are ‘to reflect the sense of public outrage . . . and deter
90
Merson v Cartwright [2005] UKPC 38, [2006] 3 LRC 264 at [18].
91
[1998] 3 NZLR 22 at 70.
92
[2005] UKPC 38, [2006] 3 LRC 264 at [18].
93
[2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328.
94
Ibid at [16].
95
[2000] 3 NZLR 136.
96
Ibid at [68].
97
Ibid at [70]. Thomas J saw vindicatory damages as compensatory (see ibid at [66] and [67]). The better
view, it is respectfully suggested, is that vindicatory damages should be treated as distinct from an award
of compensation: see below.
98
Ibid at [60].
further breaches’.99 As such, Lord Nicholls conceded that an award of vindi-

catory damages ‘is likely in most cases to cover much the same ground in
financial terms as would an award by way of punishment in the strict sense of
retribution’.100 But punishment in this sense, he continued, is not the object of
vindicatory damages and the expressions punitive and exemplary are ‘better
avoided’ in this context.101 This view was echoed by Lord Scott in Merson.102
The overlap between vindicatory and punitive damages is evident in the context
of tort law where infringement of what may be termed constitutional rights is
one of the two common law categories where punitive damages are available.103

Vindicatory damages may arguably offer a more palatable means of achieving at
least some of the aims of punitive damages and the recognition of vindicatory
damages may raise the prospect of the elimination from English civil law of this
‘anomalous’ remedy.104
B. Vindicatory Damages Outside Constitutional Law

As Ramanoop and Merson represent the only instances of a court awarding
vindicatory damages, it must be asked whether such damages may be awarded
for the infringement of rights other than constitutional rights. The obvious
argument against their wider availability would appear to be that constitutional
rights are uniquely important rights: it is the constitutional nature of the right
which adds an ‘extra dimension’ to the claim.105 But to so confine vindicatory
damages would be a mistake. First, all legal rights are important: that is why
they are legal rights and not mere social norms or conventions. The fact that
the right which has been violated is a constitutional right may, depending on
the circumstances, call for a larger award of vindicatory damages than that
justified in an action between two private parties. But the fact that the infringed
right was not explicitly constitutional ought not, of itself, to preclude an award
of vindicatory damages. Second, distinguishing constitutional from other legal
99
[2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328 at [19]. Speaking extra-judicially, Lord Scott expressed the view that
‘a deterrent element in an award of vindicatory damages should be limited to an amount calculated to deter the
wrongdoer from further infringements of the victim’s rights’. An award intended to act as a general deterrent for
the benefit of the wider public would, Lord Scott said, tend to blur the distinction between public and private
law. See Lord Scott, above n 17 at 471.
100
[2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328 at [19].
101
Ibid.
102
‘The purpose of a vindicatory award is not a punitive purpose. It is not to teach the executive not to
misbehave.’ [2005] UKPC 38, [2006] 3 LRC 264 at [18]. Cf. the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (5th edn,
2003) which gives ‘punitive’ as one meaning of vindicatory.
103
See Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129 at 1220–1231. Note that Lord Devlin thought that in the two
categories he outlined, exemplary damages could ‘serve a useful purpose in vindicating the strength of the law’:
ibid at 1226.
104
See Cassell & Co Ltd v Broome [1972] AC 1027 at 1091 (Lord Reid). See also Lord Scott’s speech in
Kuddus v Chief Constable of Leicestershire [2001] UKHL 29, [2002] 2 AC 122.
105
See Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago v Ramanoop [2005] UKPC 15, [2006] 1 AC 328 at [19] (Lord
Nicholls).
rights is not straightforward. Thus Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, speaking in the
context of identifying those torts which are actionable per se, said:
The term ‘constitutional right’ works well enough, alongside equivalent terms, in the
field of statutory interpretation. But, even if it were otherwise suitable, it is not
sufficiently precise to define a class of rights whose abuse should give rise to a right of
action in tort without proof of damage.106
Third, English law has in any event historically relied upon the law of torts to
vindicate constitutional rights,107 the ‘flagship of the fleet’ in this context being
the tort of trespass.108 Indeed, the courts continue today to use private law as

the primary means of vindicating some fundamental rights.109
It should be recognized that vindicatory damages may be less prevalent in the
contractual context because breach of contract, unlike infringement of constitu-
tional rights, is an ‘incident of commercial life’.110 In practice, as discussed
above, the performance right will generally be vindicated by compensatory
damages. Vindicatory damages will be an exceptional, gap-filling remedy for
breach of contract claims. As will be shown below, vindicatory damages are
likely to be relevant in contract where the breach causes no loss within the
conventional meaning of loss,111 where an award of compensatory damages
would be oppressive as regards the defendant,112 and where an award of
compensatory damages will not be an adequate remedy because all or part of
the loss caused by the breach is not loss for which the defendant is liable to the
claimant.113
Entick v Carrington114 and Ashby v White115 may be seen as early examples of
vindicatory damages being awarded in tort. A more recent instance, and one
unrelated to constitutional rights, is provided by the decision of the majority of
the House of Lords in Rees v Darlington Memorial Hospital NHS Trust.116 The
claimant, who was severely visually impaired, wished to be sterilised as she felt
that she would not be able to cope with bringing up a child. Her sterilization
106
Watkins v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] UKHL 17, [2006] 2 AC 395 at [62].
107
See, e.g. in the context of claims against the Crown, Davidson v Scottish Ministers [2005] UKHL 74, 2006
SCLR 249 at [73] (Lord Rodger):
By concentrating on judicial review, lawyers and judges today may tend to forget the historical importance of
the law of tort or delict as a way of vindicating the subject’s rights and freedoms.
108
T. Weir, A Casebook on Tort (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 10th edn, 2004) at 18. Entick v Carrington (1765)
2 Wils KB 275 is probably the leading example.
109
See, e.g. the way the courts have developed the equitable wrong of breach of confidence as a means of
protecting privacy following the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
110
‘Contract-breaking is treated as an incident of commercial life which players in the game are expected to
meet with mental fortitude’: Johnson v Gore Wood & Co [2002] 2 AC 1 at 49 (Lord Cooke of Thorndon).
111
See, e.g. Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798, below.
112
See, e.g. Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1996] 1 AC 344, below.
113
See, e.g. Jackson v Horizon Holidays Ltd [1975] 1 WLR 1468, below.
114
(1765) 2 Wils KB 275.
115
(1703) 2 Ld Raym 938.
116
[2003] UKHL 52, [2004] 1 AC 309.
was performed negligently by the hospital operated by the defendants.

The claimant subsequently gave birth to a healthy son. A bare majority of a
seven-member panel of the House of Lords held that the defendant was not
liable to pay for the additional cost of bringing up the child brought about by
the claimant’s disability. However, the majority also held that compensation
in respect of the stress, trauma and cost associated with the pregnancy and
birth, which was recoverable, would, on its own, not give ‘adequate recogni-
tion’ to the reality that the claimant had lost ‘the opportunity to live her life in
the way that she wished and planned’.117 Accordingly, the claimant was awarded

an additional, conventional sum of £15,000. The damages awarded in Rees are,
it is suggested, rights-based, or vindicatory, in nature.118 Such an analysis
is consistent with the approach of Lord Bingham who said that the award was
not intended to be compensatory, and was neither nominal nor derisory; rather,
it ‘would afford some measure of recognition of the wrong done.’119
What, in substance, amount to vindicatory damages may be found elsewhere
in private law. One example is an award of damages based on the so-called
‘user-principle’.120 The nature of user damages has proved controversial. Some
see them as loss-based and compensatory,121 others as gain-based and restitu-
tionary.122 In Attorney-General v Blake, Lord Nicholls appears to have adopted
a middle course, the damages being gain-based and compensatory.123 The
better approach, it is respectfully suggested, is to view these damages as rights-
based. It is worth noting that these claims arise from the defendant’s infringe-
ment of the claimant’s property rights: by wrongfully occupying or using the
claimant’s land or chattels, the defendant has interfered with the claimant’s
right to possession. The wrong is the violation itself. The defendant owes a
duty not to interfere, not merely to compensate for loss caused. That user
117
Ibid at [8] (Lord Bingham).
118
According to Weir, the award may be viewed as ‘a token of the court’s perception that the parents’
rights . . . have been infringed’. He finds a precedent for the conventional award in Rees in Benham v Gambling
[1941] AC 157 where the House of Lords awarded damages of £200 for loss of expectation of life, and identifies
this as the predecessor of bereavement damages under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. Weir thinks it ‘perfectly idle’
to view bereavement damages as ‘compensation for grief’. See Weir, above n 108 at 17 and 124.
119
[2003] UKHL 52, [2004] 1 AC 309 at [8] (Lord Bingham). Nolan concedes that a ‘rights-vindication’
analysis of the award is consistent with aspects of the reasoning of Lord Bingham and Lord Millett. Nolan’s view,
however, is that such an analysis ‘represents a fundamental challenge to negligence principles’ as the law of
negligence will unduly restrict people’s freedom of action if the requirement of harm is relaxed. The ‘rights-
vindication’ analysis poses a challenge which, he says, ‘must be rebuffed’: D. Nolan ‘New Forms of Damage in
Negligence’ (2007) 70 MLR 59–88 at 79.
120
The source of the description was attributed to Nicholls LJ (in Stoke-on-Trent City Council v W & J Wass
Ltd [1988] 1 WLR 1406) by Lord Lloyd in Inverugie Investments Ltd v Hackett [1995] 1 WLR 713 at 718. In the
context of trespass to land, the claims are for ‘mesne profits’: see, e.g. McGregor, above n 20 at para 34-039.
121
See, e.g. Whitwham v Westminster Brymbo Coal and Coke Co [1896] 2 Ch 538 at 541 (Lindley LJ),
542 (Lopes LJ), and 543 (Rigby LJ) and Strand Electric and Engineering Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd
[1952] 2 QB 246 at 252 (Somervell LJ) and 256 (Romer LJ).
122
See, e.g. Strand Electric and Engineering Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd [1952] 2 QB 246 at 255–256
(Denning LJ), Penarth Dock Engineering Co Ltd v Pounds [1963] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 359 at 362 (Lord Denning MR)
and Ministry of Defence v Ashman (1993) 66 P & CR 195 at 200 (Kennedy LJ) and 201 (Hoffmann LJ).
123
[2001] 1 AC 268 at 278. As no financial loss has been suffered the award represents ‘compensa-
tion . . . measured by a different yardstick’, that yardstick apparently being gain rather than loss (see ibid).
damages are not loss-based is supported by a comparison of the approaches
adopted by Pilcher J and the Court of Appeal in Strand Electric and Engineering
Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd.124
Pilcher J followed the approach of the House of Lords in The SS Valeria,125
where the claimant’s vessel had been damaged in a collision. In that case, Lord
Buckmaster said the damages were to be measured by what the vessel would
have earned during the period of its incapacity due to the accident. That
amount, he continued, could only be ascertained by considering what the vessel
had actually earned under similar conditions.126 Applying this in the Strand

case, Pilcher J deducted from the total weekly hire for the period of wrongful
detention of the claimants’ property sums to reflect the likelihood that the
claimants would have been unable to hire out the switchboards for the whole
of the relevant period and the likelihood that, had the defendants returned the
switchboards in a timely fashion, some may have been damaged and so have
been incapable of being hired out. In effect, he awarded damages representing
the actual loss likely to have been suffered by the claimants.
The Court of Appeal rejected this approach: the claimants were entitled to
the full market rate of hire for the entire period of detention without any
deductions.127 But, as Lord Nicholls appreciated in Blake, damages not based
on actual loss cannot sensibly be described as loss-based unless loss is given a
‘strained and artificial meaning’.128 On this analysis, Pilcher J’s award was loss-
based, while the Court of Appeal’s award was rights-based. Similarly, the
approach adopted by Megaw LJ in Swordheath Properties Ltd v Tabet,129 was rights-
based. Megaw LJ thought it clear ‘as a matter of principle and of authority’ that
the claimant there was entitled to substantial damages without adducing evidence
of loss.130 But once the court dispenses with the requirement of proof of loss,
it becomes hard to classify the award as loss-based. Some other principle would
seem to be at work. Indeed, McGregor describes the awards in these cases as
‘moving away from damages’.131
If user damages are not compensatory, might they be viewed as
restitutionary? It is helpful at the outset to identify two uses of the term
‘restitutionary’. The first describes a remedy which requires the defendant to
restore to the claimant what belongs to the claimant. Restitution, in this sense,
effects the reversal of a subtraction by the defendant from the claimant’s
property.132 Lord Hobhouse adopted this meaning in his dissenting speech
124
[1952] 2 QB 246.
125
[1922] 2 AC 242.
126
Ibid at 247–8.
127
[1952] 2 QB 246 at 252 (Somervell LJ), 255 (Denning LJ), and 257 (Romer LJ).
128
See Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268 at 279 (Lord Nicholls).
129
[1979] 1 WLR 285.
130
Ibid at 288.
131
See McGregor, above n 20 at para 34-045.
132
Thus the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (5th edn, 2003) gives as the primary meaning of restitution:
‘The action or an act of restoring or giving back something to its proper owner’.
in Blake, saying that restitution ‘is analogous to property: it concerns wealth or

advantage which ought to be returned or transferred by the defendant to
the plaintiff’.133 The essence of restitutionary relief, according to Lord
Hobhouse, is ‘the performance by the defendant of his obligations’: the
claimant ‘recovers what he is actually entitled to not some monetary substitute
for it’.134 Damages, on the other hand, are a ‘substitute for performance’.135
Lord Hobhouse thought that the remedy in Blake could not properly be
described as restitutionary. In this respect Blake can usefully be contrasted with
Reading v Attorney-General.136 Like Blake, Reading made financial gains from

his wrongdoing. But the remedy in Reading may properly be characterized as
restitutionary since, due to Reading’s position as a fiduciary, the monetary
gains he made could be treated as belonging to the Crown. But Blake was not
a fiduciary and the Crown had no interest in the money due from Jonathan
Cape. In none of the user cases can the damages be properly described
as restitutionary in this sense: in each case the remedy was substitutionary and
the claimant had no pre-existing entitlement to the sum awarded.
The second meaning of restitution is broader and refers simply to a gain-
based remedy or to the disgorgement of a gain.137 But damages based on the
user principle are not restitutionary in this sense either: for they are not
measured by the gain made by the defendant. This is evident from Inverugie
Investments Ltd v Hackett.138 Lord Lloyd, delivering the judgment of the Privy
Council, applied the user principle and concluded that the claimant was
entitled to recover a reasonable rent whether or not he had ‘suffered any actual
loss’.139 Likewise, the defendant was liable to pay a reasonable rent even
though he ‘may not have derived any actual benefit’.140 In the same way that it
is difficult to regard as loss-based those awards not based on actual loss, so too
with supposedly gain-based damages which are awarded irrespective of any
gain. Lord Lloyd thought that an award based on the user principle ‘need not
be characterized as exclusively compensatory, or exclusively restitutionary; it
combines elements of both’.141 In other words, arguably, user damages seek
neither to compensate the claimant for the consequences of the wrong nor
deprive the defendant of the fruits of that wrong. Their aim is to vindicate
133
[2001] 1 AC 268 at 296.
134
Ibid 297 (emphasis in the original).
135
Ibid (emphasis in the original).
136
[1951] AC 507.
137
See, e.g. G. Virgo, The Principles of the Law of Restitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2006)
at 3: ‘The law of restitution is concerned with the award of a generic group of remedies which . . . have one
common function, namely to deprive the defendant of a gain rather than to compensate the plaintiff for loss
suffered.’
138
[1995] 1 WLR 713.
139
Ibid at 718 (emphasis in the original).
140
Ibid (emphasis in the original).
141
Ibid. Lord Lloyd himself seems to have viewed the damages as compensatory: see ibid at 717.
the claimant’s right to possession: the damages represent the intrinsic value of
this right, rather than the amount of any loss or gain arising out of its
infringement. The defendant has violated the claimant’s right to exclusive
possession and he must pay for the privilege.
C. Vindicatory Damages for Breach of Contract
(i) Compulsory acquisition of a right and loss of a bargaining opportunity

User damages seek to make good the claimant’s right to possession of his
property. More recently the same principle has been applied to personal rights
and, in particular, contractual rights.
Property rights are superior to contractual rights in that, unlike contractual rights,
property rights may survive against an indefinite class of persons. However, it is
not easy to see why, as between the parties to a contract, a violation of a party’s
contractual rights should attract a lesser degree of remedy than a violation of his
property rights . . . it is not clear why it should be any more permissible to expropriate
personal rights than it is permissible to expropriate property rights.142
The leading case remains Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd.143
The defendant put up houses on the Wrotham Park Estate in breach of a
covenant against development. Brightman J refused to grant a mandatory
injunction and went on to consider what damages, if any, ought to be awarded to
the claimant. The claimant had conceded that the value of the Estate had
not been reduced at all by the development. But Brightman J rejected the
defendant’s argument that the claimant was only entitled to nominal damages and
awarded the sum which the claimant might reasonably have demanded ‘as a
quid pro quo for relaxing the covenant’.144 As with damages based on the user
principle, disagreement dogs the proper characterization of the award in Wrotham
Park. The judicial consensus appears to favour a compensatory analysis.145
142
Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268 at 283 (Lord Nicholls). See also the comments of Laws LJ in
Manchester Airport plc v Dutton [2000] 1 QB 133 at 149.
143
[1974] 1 WLR 798. For more recent examples see: World Wide Fund for Nature v World Wrestling Federation
Entertainment Inc [2006] EWHC 184 (Ch) (reversed on other grounds at [2007] EWCA Civ 286); Horsford v Bird
[2006] UKPC 3, [2006] 1 EGLR 75; Severn Trent Water Ltd v Barnes [2004] EWCA Civ 570, [2004] 2 EGLR
95; Lane v O’Brien Homes [2004] EWHC 303 (QB); Amec Developments Ltd v Jury’s Hotel Management (UK) Ltd
(2000) 82 P & CR 286.
144
[1974] 1 WLR 798 at 815. As to amount, Brightman J thought that the damages had to be calculated on a
‘fair’ basis, and he assessed this as a sum equal to 5% of the developer’s anticipated profits (ibid at 816).
145
See, e.g. Tito v Waddell (No 2) [1977] Ch 106 at 335 (Megarry V-C); Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269
at 281 (Bingham MR) and 291 (Millett LJ); and World Wide Fund for Nature v World Wrestling Federation
Entertainment Inc [2006] EWHC 184 (Ch) at [137] (Peter Smith J); [2007] EWCA Civ 286 at [29] (Chadwick
LJ). In Attorney-General v Blake [2001] 1 AC 268 at 282, Lord Nicholls appears to have viewed the damages in
Wrotham Park as gain-based compensation, on the basis that it is ‘axiomatic’ that damages for breach of contract
are compensatory. See also Lord Scott, above n 17. But, cf, Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [1993]
1 WLR 1361 at 1369 (Steyn LJ).
Academics seem, on the whole, to prefer a restitutionary interpretation.146

We suggest that the award in Wrotham Park is better viewed as an award of
vindicatory damages. The claimant there was worse off not because its enjoyment
of the Estate was adversely affected but because the defendant had acted in
flagrant disregard of the covenant and the court, for wider policy reasons,147
refused to restore the benefit of the covenant by means of a mandatory injunction.
The damages were thus awarded as a matter of ‘fairness’148 so as to ensure a
‘just’149 outcome; they were not intended to act as an indemnity for loss.
In any event, it is respectfully suggested that a compensatory analysis of

Wrotham Park is misconceived. The difficulty with characterizing the award as
compensatory arises, not because the loss cannot be expressed in financial terms,
but because there was no loss at all. The breach did not cause any diminution in
the value of the Estate,150 nor was there any loss of amenity. Did the claimant
nevertheless ‘lose’ the release fee it could have secured from the defendant for
relaxing the covenant? Brightman J characterized the award in this way.151 It was,
however, accepted that the claimant would never have agreed to relax the
covenant.152 The position of the claimant in Wrotham Park is thus analogous to
that of the claimant in Ford v White & Co.153 There, the claimant bought property
which he intended to develop. His solicitor failed, in breach of contract, to bring
to his attention a covenant against development. The evidence showed that
the property would have been worth an additional £1,250 had it not been for the
covenant. The court held that the claimant could not recover this sum as damages
as it did not represent his loss of bargain: the award would not have had the
effect of putting the claimant in the position he would have been in had the
contract been performed. For, if the solicitor had performed the contract,
the claimant would not have proceeded with the purchase. In the same way, had
the contract in Wrotham Park been performed, that is, had the defendant sought a
release from the covenant before developing, no release would have been
forthcoming, and the claimant would not have received a release fee. It follows
that it was not open to the court to award damages on the basis of a loss of an
146
See, e.g. P. Birks ‘Restitutionary Damages for Breach of Contract: Snepp and the Fusion of Law and
Equity’ [1987] LMCLQ 421–442 at 428; A. Burrows, The Law of Restitution (London: Butterworths, 2nd edn,
2002) at 483; J. Edelman, Gain-Based Damages: Contract, Tort, Equity and Intellectual Property (Oxford: Hart,
2002) at 179; McGregor, above n 20 at para 12-023; and Virgo, above n 137 at 482. Other writers are more
equivocal: Tettenborn describes Wrotham Park as adopting ‘partly restitutionary reasoning’ (A. Tettenborn, The
Law of Restitution in England and Ireland (London: Cavendish, 3rd edn, 2002) at 249 (emphasis added)).
Similarly, Smith concludes that Wrotham Park ‘seems to mix compensatory and restitutionary aims’ (S.A. Smith,
Atiyah’s Introduction to the Law of Contract (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6th edn, 2005) at 413).
147
Brightman J thought that to order the demolition of the newly-constructed houses would constitute an
‘unpardonable waste of much needed houses’: [1974] 1 WLR 798 at 811.
148
Ibid at 812.
149
Ibid at 815.
150
Ibid at 812.
151
Ibid at 815.
152
‘[T]he plaintiffs, rightly conscious of their obligations towards existing residents, would clearly not have
granted any relaxation.’ (Ibid).
153
[1964] 1 WLR 885.
opportunity to bargain as it was clear that the claimant would not have availed
himself of that opportunity.
Nor, it is respectfully suggested, should the damages in Wrotham Park be
viewed as restitutionary. First, they did not restore to the claimant something to
which the claimant had a pre-existing entitlement. A restitutionary remedy in
this sense would have been a mandatory injunction. Second, if the remedy is
gain-based, it is difficult to understand why the claimant should only receive
5 per cent of the defendant’s anticipated profit. Such a modest figure indicates
that the award was intended more as recognition of the breach of covenant than

as a means of depriving the defendant of his gain.154
(ii) Deprivation of a benefit

In Blake, Lord Nicholls thought that damages for the loss of a bargaining
opportunity and the price payable for the compulsory acquisition of a right
amounted to the same thing.155 On this basis, the award in Wrotham Park
represented the reasonable value of the claimant’s right to prevent develop-
ment on the defendant’s land, the benefit of which the defendant had in
effect compulsorily acquired. The same principle may be identified in what,
at first sight, appears to be a different kind of case. In Ruxley Electronics
and Construction Ltd v Forsyth156 the House of Lords held that Mr Forsyth
was not entitled to damages representing the cost of curing the defendant’s breach
of contract and re-instated the judge’s award of £2,500 for loss of amenity.
Lord Mustill rejected the argument that diminution in value and cost of cure
were the only measures of loss, ‘for the law must cater for those occasions
where the value of the promise to the promisee exceeds the financial
enhancement of his position which full performance will secure’.157 This
excess, the so-called consumer surplus, represents ‘a personal, subjective and
non-monetary gain’.158 The law, Lord Mustill said, should recognize this gain
154
That the damages in Wrotham Park are neither loss-based nor gain-based gains further support from their
analysis by Nourse LJ in Stoke-on-Trent City Council v W & J Wass Ltd [1988] 1 WLR 1406 at 1414. While
describing the result in Wrotham Park as ‘entirely appropriate’, Nourse LJ viewed the decision as being
‘something akin to an award of exemplary damages for breach of contract’. While, as has been noted above, it is
important to distinguish vindicatory damages from punitive, or exemplary, damages, Nourse LJ’s approach is
arguably more consistent with a vindicatory analysis than a compensatory or restitutionary one.
155
[2001] 1 AC 268 at 282. It is respectfully suggested that this may not be the case. Damages for loss of a
bargaining opportunity depend upon there being a bargaining opportunity in the first place. As Megarry V-C
pointed out in Tito v Waddell (No 2) [1977] Ch 106 at 335, the bargaining opportunity arises from the defendant
being faced with either an injunction restraining breach or liability for substantial damages for breach. On this
basis the claimant in Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [1993] 1 WLR 1361 had no bargaining
opportunity to lose. Dillon LJ said that there had never been any possibility of an injunction being granted to
restrain the breach of covenant; nor did the breach cause any diminution in value of any adjoining property
owned or occupied by the claimant (ibid at 1364). Yet Lord Nicholls appears to have thought that there ought to
have been an award of substantial damages in the Surrey case (see [2001] 1 AC 268 at 283).
156
[1996] AC 344.
157
Ibid at 360.
158
Ibid at 360–361. For the idea of consumer surplus, see D. Harris, A. Ogus and J. Philips ‘Contract
Remedies and the Consumer Surplus’ (1979) 95 LQR 581–610. Cf. Webb who cautions that ‘the vindication of
the performance interest and the proper recognition of the consumer surplus are distinct issues, the latter going to
the compensation interest’. See Webb, above n 57 at 55.
and ‘compensate the promisee if the misperformance takes it away’.159 Lord

Mustill’s account, however, is problematic in its reference to a subjective gain by
the claimant. Diminution in value and cost of cure, the general measures of
normal loss,160 incorporate an important safeguard so far as the defendant is
concerned. His liability under the contract as regards normal loss is limited by
the objective standard provided by market value. Diminution in value and cost
of cure provide an equitable balance between the competing interests of
claimant and defendant: they provide a reliable means of placing the claimant
in the same position as if the contract had been performed, while ensuring that

the defendant’s duty to compensate is not rendered unduly onerous by the
claimant’s subjective expectations. Given that normal loss is ‘that loss which
every claimant in a like situation will suffer’,161 it is logical to use an objective
means of measurement, namely, the market. Subjective loss is recoverable in
contract as well as tort, but it is recoverable as consequential loss.162 The
defendant is protected from too onerous a liability for such loss by the relevant
remoteness rule.
In any event, the concepts of normal and consequential loss as conventionally
measured are capable of recognizing the intangible, non-pecuniary benefit
which the consumer surplus represents. This is shown by the ‘ruined holiday’ case
of Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd.163 The judge’s award of £31.72 seems to have been
based on the lack of facilities actually available to Mr Jarvis.164 The Court of
Appeal increased the award to £125 on the basis that Mr Jarvis was ‘entitled
to damages for the lack of those facilities, and for his loss of enjoyment.’165 Loss of
enjoyment in the context of a contract for a holiday corresponds to loss of
profit in the context of an ordinary commercial contract, and loss of profit
will generally comprise consequential loss. The Court of Appeal in effect
awarded damages for normal and consequential loss. Returning to the Ruxley
case, it seems clear that Mr Forsyth suffered no loss of amenity as conventionally
measured.166 The evidence indicated that the reasonable man would have
attached equal value to, and derived equal enjoyment from, a pool of the
contractual depth and the pool as built. As Lord Scott observed in Farley v
Skinner, the builder’s breach of contract in Ruxley did not cause any consequential
loss consisting of vexation, anxiety or other species of mental distress.167
159
[1996] AC 344 at 361.
160
Employing McGregor’s distinction between normal and consequential loss: see McGregor, above n 20 at
para 1-036.
161
Ibid.
162
McGregor describes consequential losses as losses which are ‘special to the circumstances of the claimant’;
they will include lost profits: ibid.
163
[1973] 1 QB 233.
164
Ibid at 237.
165
Ibid at 238 (emphasis added).
166
See Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v Panatown Ltd [2001] 1 AC 518 at 588 (Lord Millett).
167
[2001] UKHL 49, [2002] 2 AC 732 at [80].
Loss of amenity is not the sole ground of the decision in Ruxley. Having
expressed agreement with the trial judge’s award of damages for loss of
amenity, Lord Lloyd observed that such an approach would not be available in
most cases.168 His Lordship gave the example of the construction of a new
house with minor defects, where there was no difference in value and the cost
of cure would be prohibitive.
Is there any reason why the court should not award by way of damages for breach of
contract some modest sum, not based on difference in value, but solely to compensate
the buyer for his disappointed expectations? Is the law of damages so inflexible . . . that

it cannot find some middle ground in such a case?169
Lord Lloyd’s approach was adopted by Lord Scott in Farley v Skinner.170
According to Lord Scott, Ruxley establishes that where the defendant fails in
breach of contract to supply something which, if supplied, would have been of
value to the claimant, the claimant should be ‘compensated in damages to the
extent of that value’ if there is no other way of compensating him.171 The
Ruxley principle
should be used to provide damages for deprivation of a contractual benefit where it is
apparent that the injured party has been deprived of something of value but the
ordinary means of measuring the recoverable damages are inapplicable.172
The deprivation of a benefit approach differs from the account of vindicatory
damages put forward here in that Lord Lloyd and Lord Scott view the damages
as compensatory. But a compensatory approach, it is respectfully suggested,
creates difficulties. The ‘loss’ caused by the breach in Ruxley did not extend to
the need to re-instate;173 nor was there any difference in the value between the
pool contracted for and the pool as built; nor was there any loss of amenity. To
insist that the award nevertheless remains compensatory strains the orthodox
meaning of loss. It is better to accept that, on conventional principles, the
breach in Ruxley caused no loss. Nevertheless, to have left Mr Forsyth empty-
handed would have meant that his right to demand a pool of a certain depth
lacked any substance. The damages in Ruxley seek to give content to that right:
they are thus rights-based not loss-based. There can be no question here of
treating the damages as restitutionary or gain-based: there was no evidence that
Ruxley derived any benefit from the skimped performance.
168
[1996] AC 344 at 374.
169
Ibid. McKendrick points out that the claimant has more than an ‘expectation’ of performance: he has a
right to it. See McKendrick, above n 57 at 170.
170
[2001] UKHL 49, [2002] 2 AC 732.
171
Ibid at [79].
172
Ibid at [86]. In Farley itself, Lord Scott thought it ‘open to the court to adopt a [Ruxley] approach and
place a value on the contractual benefit of which Mr Farley has been deprived’ (ibid at [107]).
173
[1996] AC 344 at 357 (Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle).
(iii) Third party loss

A further situation where compensatory damages may not be an adequate
remedy occurs where all or part of the benefit of performance is to be conferred
on a third party. As St Martins Property Corporation Ltd v Sir Robert
McAlpine Ltd174 and Darlington Borough Council v Wiltshier Northern Ltd175
demonstrate, it may be possible to vindicate the claimant’s performance right
by allowing him to recover, and then account for, what is viewed as the third
party’s loss. Where this occurs, the court is awarding compensatory damages
for tangible losses such as repair costs. These are not vindicatory damages in

the sense in which we use the term here. Nor, it seems, would the damages
which the minority would have awarded in Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd v
Panatown Ltd176 have been vindicatory. Lord Millett made clear that the
claimant would be recovering for ‘defective or incomplete work or delay in
completing it’.177 These are conventional damages which compensate for a
loss: they are not rights-based.178
An alternative to recovery by the claimant on behalf of a third party is for the
claimant to recover vindicatory damages. Take, as an example, Jackson v Horizon
Holidays Ltd,179 another ‘ruined holiday’ case, this time involving a family holiday
costing £1,200. The trial judge’s award of £1,100 was upheld by the Court of
Appeal. Lord Denning MR thought that the difference in value between the
holiday contracted for and the holiday received was about £600. The Master of the
Rolls, with whom Orr LJ agreed, held that the balance of the damages awarded
represented the disappointment experienced by the whole family and that
Mr Jackson could recover for this.180 James LJ appears to have upheld the judge’s
award on the basis that it comprised simply the difference in value between the
holiday paid for and received.181 Given that the holiday cost £1,200, and given
Lord Denning MR’s view that the family had had about half its value,
this approach seems questionable.182 A better basis for the decision in Jackson,
it is suggested, is that part of the award comprised vindicatory damages.
Mr Jackson could recover compensatory damages for the difference in value and
for his own disappointment. The balance of the £1,100 award would comprise
174
[1994] 1 AC 85.
175
[1995] 1 WLR 68.
176
[2001] 1 AC 518.
177
Ibid at 591.
178
Thus Lord Millett comments: ‘Even though the plaintiff recovers for his own loss, this obviously reflects
the loss sustained by the third party’ (ibid at 595).
179
[1975] 1 WLR 1468.
180
The House of Lords in Woodar Investment Development Ltd v Wimpey Construction UK Ltd [1980] 1 WLR
277 agreed with the outcome in Jackson but disapproved of Lord Denning MR’s reasoning on this point: see ibid
at 283–284 (Lord Wilberforce), 293–294 (Lord Russell of Killowen), and 297 (Lord Keith of Kinkel).
181
[1975] 1 WLR 1468 at 1474.
182
Nevertheless James LJ’s approach was approved by Lord Wilberforce in Woodar v Wimpey: see [1980]
1 WLR 277 at 283. Lord Russell said (ibid at 293) that he would have adopted the same approach, on the basis
that the claimant ‘paid for a high class family holiday; he did not get it, and therefore he was entitled to
substantial damages for the failure to supply him with one’.
a fair and reasonable sum giving content to Mr Jackson’s performance right.
The overall award would then be part loss-based and part rights-based.183
5. Concluding Remarks
Speaking extra-judicially, Lord Scott recently lamented the incoherence of the
current law of damages.184 In the context of contractual damages, any
incoherence would seem to arise from those cases where substantial damages
are awarded but where the claimant has not suffered any loss within the

conventional meaning of the term. While some maintain that such awards
comprise restitutionary damages, it has been argued that such an explanation is
unsatisfactory. Restitution is better confined to a remedy whereby the
defendant is ordered to restore to the claimant property or value belonging
to the claimant, that is, where the defendant’s gain corresponds to the
claimant’s loss. While Reading v Attorney-General provides an example of a
restitutionary remedy, awards of mesne profits and user damages fall outside
the ambit of restitution. Even if restitution is used in a looser sense, to refer to
a gain-based remedy, restitutionary awards ought logically to equate to the gain
actually realized by the defendant. Just as actual loss forms the basis of
compensatory damages, so too should actual gain form the basis of gain-based
damages. As has been shown, awards of mesne profits and user damages are
not based on any actual gain. The alternative explanation offered for these
cases, that the remedy is compensatory, involves straining the conventional
meaning of loss. The better approach, it has been argued, is to extend the
availability of vindicatory damages to these cases. Awards of vindicatory
damages seek to make good the claimant’s performance right, and give
substance to the principle that a claimant has a legally enforceable right to the
performance of the contract. Vindicatory damages enable the courts to grant an
adequate remedy. Our approach draws some support from Webb’s examination
of contractual rights.185 Webb distinguishes between the performance and
compensation interests and argues that ‘it is only the compensatory interest
that should properly be regarded as being concerned with the issue of loss’.186
Where the court makes a monetary award to give effect to the claimant’s
performance interest, ‘the notion of loss is superfluous’.187 Webb’s analysis is
relevant because he advocates a measure of damages which is not based on loss
183
Where applicable, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 allows, in effect, for the vindication of
the performance right by an award of damages to the third party himself.
184
‘Damages and Incoherence’, University of Liverpool Law School Annual Public Law Lecture, 23 February
2007. See also Lord Scott, above n 17.
185
Webb, above n 57.
186
Webb, above n 57 at 53.
187
Webb, above n 57 at 54. Webb goes on to argue for the wider availability of cost of cure damages as these
give greater effect to the claimant’s right to receive performance. That, of course, is not our argument here.
and which seeks to make good the claimant’s right to performance of the
contract.
Vindication should be recognized as an important principle driving
development of the law, and vindicatory damages as a significant means of
giving effect to that principle. But the importance of vindicatory damages lies
not just in ensuring a just outcome for a claimant where no other remedy is
available. Vindicatory damages may be also used to ensure that the remedy
awarded to a claimant does not impose undue liability on the defendant.
Chester v Afshar188 is a case where an award of vindicatory damages would have

been preferable to an award of compensation for that very reason. In Chester,
the defendant, a neurosurgeon, had advised the claimant to undergo surgery on
her spine but negligently failed to warn the claimant of a small risk that the
surgery, even if performed with due care and skill, might lead to her developing
a particular adverse condition. The claimant underwent the surgery, which was
performed by the defendant with due care and skill, but later developed the
condition. She sued the defendant in negligence. The judge found that if
the claimant had been warned by the defendant of the risk of developing the
condition, she would not have had the surgery on that particular day but would
have sought further advice elsewhere. The judge made no finding that the
claimant, if duly warned, would not have undergone surgery at a later date.
The risk of developing the condition would have been the same whenever the
surgery took place. The House of Lords unanimously held that on conventional
principles the claim failed: the defendant’s breach had not been the effective
cause of the injury, nor had it increased the risk of the injury.189 But the
majority clearly believed that the claimant ought to have had a remedy, and
they held that the defendant was liable in damages: the defendant had been
under a duty to warn of the risk of injury and the injury resulted from the risk.
While an outright refusal of damages would have failed to vindicate the right to
be warned,190 the imposition of liability to compensate for loss arising from the
outcome of the surgery was unduly onerous.191 The better solution would have
been to have awarded vindicatory damages, a fair and reasonable sum to
recognize the wrong. This would have better reflected the reality of the
situation: that the heart of the claim was that the defendant had infringed
the claimant’s right to be warned of the risks of the proposed operation but the
infringement had not brought about the loss of which complaint was made.
188
[2004] UKHL 41, [2005] 1 AC 134.
189
Ibid at [8] (Lord Bingham), [22] (Lord Steyn), [32] (Lord Hoffmann), [84] (Lord Hope) and [90] (Lord
Walker of Gestingthorpe).
190
As the claim arose in negligence, it would seem that the remedy of nominal damages would not have been
available: in any event, this would not have vindicated the right to be warned.
191
This assumes that the damages were to be assessed in the ordinary way: the verdict at trial was as to
liability only.

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Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2008), pp.

Damages for Breach of Contract:

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distinguishing the primary right to performance from the secondary right to

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2. Compensation and Vindication

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B. The Demise of Nominal Damages

in contract.17 For nominal damages are ‘not intended to compensate for

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C. The Different Functions of Compensatory Damages

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D. The Vindicatory Function of Compensatory Damages

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3. The Reach of the Vindicatory Impulse

departure from conventional compensatory principles. Take the extension of

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an injunction, so the plaintiff’s interest in performance may make it just and

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further breaches’.99 As such, Lord Nicholls conceded that an award of vindi-

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B. Vindicatory Damages Outside Constitutional Law

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was performed negligently by the hospital operated by the defendants.

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in Blake, saying that restitution ‘is analogous to property: it concerns wealth or

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C. Vindicatory Damages for Breach of Contract

(i) Compulsory acquisition of a right and loss of a bargaining opportunity

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Academics seem, on the whole, to prefer a restitutionary interpretation.146

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(ii) Deprivation of a benefit

and ‘compensate the promisee if the misperformance takes it away’.159 Lord

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(iii) Third party loss

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