Breach Of Contract Assignment: Business & Acorporation Law
Question
Task: Peter, a second-hand car dealer, purchased a car in the wholesale market for $15,000. Peter contracted to sell the car to David for $20,000, but David refused to take delivery of the car. Peter sued David for breach of contract.
Requirement:
(1) What damages can Peter claim?
(2) If Peter later sells the car to another purchaser for $18,000, what damages, if any, would Peter be entitled to?
Answer
Question 1
Issue: In the present case of Breach of Contract assignment, an issue is related to the damages that could be claimed by the injured party in case of breach of contract.
Applicable law
According to Contract Act, breach of contract is referred to as a violation of the agreed terms and conditions. Section 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 considered to prepare this Breach of Contract assignment, states about the statutory remedies for breach of contract. In Australia, the Sales of Goods Act is based on the Sales of Goods Act 1893, of the UK. As per section 31 of the Sales of Goods Act, 1954, it is the duty of buyer to accept the goods, as per terms of contract (Sales of Goods Act 1954, 2018). If in case, buyer breaches the duty, then as per section 52 of the cited Act, seller has right to maintain an action for the price (Chalkidis, Androutsopoulos, and Michos, 2017). With this aspect, the court would award consequential damages in case of breach of contract. It has been acknowledged by the Australian Court, that the main objective of expectation damages is to offer a financial alternative for performance, whether such damages are ascertained by based on loss of profit, reliance basis, or cost-of-a cure basis (Marsh, 2017).
Cases
In the legal case of Commonwealth v Amann Aviation Pty Ltd, it has been held by the court, and the plaintiff is required to prove about his/her prediction of specific outcome due to performance of the contract. Moreover, this attitude is also complied in subsequent cases such as Tabcorp Holdings Ltd v Bowen Investment Pty Ltd as well as in Clark v Macourt (Barnett, 2016). The main objective of such cases to give a sufficient amount of monetary compensation for breach of performance. In the legal case of Robinson v Harman, it has been mentioned that, where the party suffers from the loss because of breach of contract, he is, as possible as the financial amount can do it, to be sited in the related situation, by considering the damages, as it the contract had been completed (Chalkidis, and Androutsopoulos, 2017).
Implementation of law in the present case scenario
By considering the present case scenario of Breach of Contract assignment, it can be said that David has violated the agreed terms of a binding contract, which leads to a breach of contract. Further, the primary aspect of monetary compensation is to put the plaintiff in the same position, as if the contract was duly performed by the party. With this aspect, in the present case, Peter purchased the car for $15,000 and agreed to sale this car for a price of $20,000. If David performed the contract, that means if he purchased the car, then in such case, Peter earned $5000. In this situation, it is assumed that there is no alternative market or buyer is found by Peter.