Restitutionary damages for breach of contract: Bank of America Canada v. Mutual Trust Co

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • McInnes, Mitchell

• Introduction: The orthodox response to a breach of contract is compensation. The defendant must, through the monetary proxy of damages, place the plaintiff in the position that she would have enjoyed if the contract had been properly performed. The value of that remedy is calculated exclusively by reference to the plaintiffs loss. The corollary is also true. The common law traditionally refused to award gain-based relief. The plaintiff was not entitled to strip the defendant of a benefit that he acquired through breach. In 2000, however, the House of Lords released a remarkable judgment that, for the first time ever, expressly imposed a gain-based, or \"restitutionary\", remedy for breach of contract. Attorney General v. Blake involved a convicted double agent who escaped prison, fled to the Soviet Union, and subsequently sold his memoirs to an English publisher in exchange for the promise of £150,000 in advances.

• Date created

  2002

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Restitution--Canada
  • Canada
  • Performance Contracts

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3445HS78

• License

  © 2002 Canadian Business Law Journal. This article has been reproduced with the permission of the CBLJ.