Remedies for Breach of Contract — Overview — KSLU Contract I Notes

Remedies for Breach of Contract — Overview

A contract breaks. You are angry — but the law does not care about your anger, it cares about your loss and how to put it right. There are five doors the injured party can knock on, and a good answer walks the examiner through all five in order.

The injured party’s toolkit

When a contract is broken, the aggrieved party may pursue one or more of these remedies:

Rescission of the contract (s.39, s.75) — treat the contract as at an end and refuse further performance; the rescinding party may also claim compensation.
Damages (s.73) — money compensation for the loss caused by the breach (the principal remedy — see Topic 2).
Specific performance — a court order to actually perform the contract (Specific Relief Act — Unit 5), granted where damages are inadequate.
Injunction — a court order restraining a party from doing what he promised not to do (Unit 5).
Quantum meruit — a claim for “as much as is earned” for work already done, where the contract is discharged before completion (see Topic 4).

The first two live in the Contract Act; specific performance and injunction come from the Specific Relief Act, 1963.

Section 75, Indian Contract Act, 1872: “A person who rightfully rescinds a contract is entitled to compensation for any damage which he has sustained through the non-fulfilment of the contract.”

In Simple Terms: a broken contract gives the injured party a menu — end it, claim money, force performance, restrain a breach, or be paid for work already done.

flowchart TD
    BR["Breach of contract"]
    BR --> R["Rescission (s.39/75)"]
    BR --> D["Damages (s.73) — the main remedy"]
    BR --> SP["Specific performance (SRA)"]
    BR --> IN["Injunction (SRA)"]
    BR --> QM["Quantum meruit (part-performance)"]

Case Laws

[C-10] Hadley v Baxendale (1854) — sets the boundaries of recoverable damages (see Topic 2), the starting point for the whole law of remedies.

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