Breach of Contract and Remedies

No contract, no breach

Breach of contract is a word for a broken contractual promise. If were never met, you are still in formation, and the note is the prior chapter. Students lose the problem by assuming a contract because someone looks disappointed. Disappointment is not an element. The element is a promise the Act treats as a contract, and a failure the Act treats as breach, without a lawful excuse. Open the Indian Contract Act. This page will not replace it, and it will not name a rupee sum.

Remedies come second. The main compensatory idea is that the injured party is to be placed, in money, as near as money can to the position if the contract had been performed, subject to the limits the Act and the cases actually state. You learn the limits from the text and from judgments you open. You do not learn them from a round number in a sample answer.

Kinds of failure, kept distinct

A party may fail on the day performance is due. A party may also, before that day, show that they will not perform. The second idea is often called anticipatory breach. Use the label only when the facts are a refusal or a disablement the doctrine recognises, and check the Act's sections rather than a blog's nickname. A grumble is not a repudiation. A late shipment is not automatically the same as a refusal to ship at all. Time is of the essence only if the contract or the law makes it so. Write the sentence in the contract that mentions time. If there is no sentence, say so.

Damages in principle, never as a made-up award

Compensation looks at loss caused by the breach, within the rules on remoteness you study from the Act and the cases. Mitigation, the idea that the injured party should not sit still and grow the loss, is part of that study. None of those sentences produces a figure. If a problem gives prices, you may be asked to apply a method. If it does not, your answer stops at the method. Inventing "rupees fifty thousand as reasonable" is a fiction. Specific performance is different again. It asks the court to order the act itself. It lives chiefly in the specific-relief statute, and it is discretionary and exceptional in the way that statute provides. Do not write "the court will grant specific performance" as a reflex for every unique good.

Notices and drafts are not decrees

A demand letter does not adjudicate breach. The educational shape of a notice, and the warning not to send one, is in . A class contract is not a decree either. keeps student paper unsigned. If you cite a remedy section, open it with the . A section number you remember from a senior is not a citation.

What an answer should contain

Identify the promise. Say whether a contract was formed. Say how it was broken, with the fact. Name the remedy in principle. State what you are not deciding, including quantum if the facts are silent. Mention specific performance only if the problem asks for an order to perform, and then state that it depends on the relief statute rather than on enthusiasm. Do not threaten the other party. Do not advise a shopkeeper in the hypothetical to sue tomorrow.

Limitation periods for suits are statutory and time-sensitive. This note does not print a number of years. Look up the Limitation Act provision if your course reaches it, on the official text, for the year you are studying. A remembered "three years for everything" is how late suits are filed and how exam answers go wrong.

A hypothetical without a price tag

Hypothetical. A supplier agrees to deliver chairs for a wedding on a named morning. The chairs do not come. The student writes "breach, damages of one lakh, plus specific performance." The problem has no price, no loss evidence, and no reason the chairs are unique.

A better note says: if the agreement is a contract, failure to deliver on the named morning is a breach of that promise; compensation would follow the Act's principle and needs proof of loss the problem does not give; specific performance is not assumed. The number "one lakh" is deleted because it came from nowhere. The wedding is distressing. Distress is not a figure.

A checklist for a remedy problem

Keep formation in view. 1. Confirm there is a contract, using the essentials. 2. Quote or paraphrase the promise that was due. 3. Point to the fact of failure. 4. Ask whether an excuse appears in the problem. 5. Name compensation as a principle, without inventing quantum. 6. Mention specific performance only as a statutory, non-automatic possibility. 7. Do not draft a notice to send, and confirm every section you cite on the official Act.

If step 1 fails, stop. The remaining steps are for a contract that exists.

No calculator and no lawsuit

Kanoons Academy does not currently list a separate LAWCET, CLAT, or AP LAWCET batch in the catalogue; these notes are study material, and counselling is via . The nearest catalogue course is . That course teaches how to read an Act, a rule, and a judgment note. It will not quantify your loss. The button uses the course's name.

Study the principle. Leave the number to evidence you actually have.