Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Contractual damages and remedies under English law: termination, causation, remoteness, mitigation, expectation/reliance/restitution, quantification (Ruxley), non-pecuniary loss, and liquidated damages versus penalties (Cavendish v Makdessi)

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Practice notes

Overview

This Practice Note forms part of our LLB Contract Law series for law students. It surveys the remedies for breach of contract, with damages at the heart of the common law response. Setting remedies within the framework of contract, it explains when a party may terminate—most notably for breach of conditions and of innominate (or ‘intermediate’) terms. It then sets out the expectation principle from Robinson v Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850, stressing that an award should put the claimant in the position they would have been in had performance occurred. The Note next traces the principal constraints on recovery—causation, remoteness, and the duty to mitigate—and discusses leading cases on mitigation to show how these limits operate even once breach is proved. It also considers alternative measures—expectation, reliance and, in rare cases, restitutionary recovery—before addressing quantification, including the contrast between ‘difference in value’ and ‘cost of cure’ illustrated by Ruxley Electronics v Forsyth [1996] AC 344. Finally, it deals with non-pecuniary loss and the contemporary approach to liquidated damages and penalty clauses, and ends with comparative reflections, engaging with theories of...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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