Establishing a breach is only the start: the real contest in most contract disputes is over which losses the law will actually pay for. This chapter opens with the compensatory purpose of damages and the gateways of causation and remoteness, before turning to the two primary measures of loss — expectation and reliance — and the choice between cost of cure, difference in value and recovery for non-pecuniary harm such as distress and loss of amenity. It then works through the duty to mitigate and other reductions, the market-based rules governing sale of goods and the limits on recovering for a third party's loss. It closes with liquidated damages clauses and the penalty rule, alongside the rule on part payment of debts and the consideration that can escape it.
