Mitigation in the Law of Damages

Höfundur: Andy Summers (Útgáfa: 1)
Mitigation in the Law of Damages

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The law of mitigation determines how a claimant's own response to a breach affects the damages they can recover. It responds to the basic accusation: 'although I did wrong, you made things worse'. Mitigation applies to all claims for compensation, regardless of the claimant's cause of action and irrespective of the defendant's level of fault. It is amongst the most litigated doctrines in private law and has significant implications for general theories of damages, and yet has received relatively little scholarly attention to date.

Mitigation in the Law of Damages provides the first comprehensive theoretical and doctrinal treatment of this important area of the law in any common law jurisdiction. It argues that contrary to the leading texts on damages, judges have been right all along to explain mitigation as an aspect of causation. But to see why, we must look beyond the 'but-for' concept of causation and understand the 'common-sense' causal principles used to attribute responsibility outside the law.

This approach reveals a new understanding of the rules of mitigation and their relation to other doctrines. The implications are wide-ranging. First, mitigation applies symmetrically to benefits as well as harms, and encompasses a variety of damages doctrines that have previously been regarded as distinct. Second, the new account of mitigation advances our understanding of the legal concepts of causation, choice, and loss, and calls for a re-evaluation of existing theories of damages.

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Útgefandi
Oxford University Press Academic UK
ISBN
9780192559159
Print ISBN
9780198825333
Format
ePub
Útgáfa
1
Höfundar
Andy Summers
Tungumál
English
Útgefið
2024-10-18
Prent takmörkun á líftíma
100
Prent takmörkun
2
Afritunar takmörkun
2

Kaflar

  • Cover Page
  • Title page
  • Copyright page
  • Acknowledgements
  • Dedication
  • Brief Contents
  • Detailed Contents
  • Table of Cases
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • New Zealand
  • United Kingdom
  • Introduction
  • 1 Overview
  • 2 Aims
  • 3 Scope
  • 4 Structure
  • Part 1 Orthodoxy
  • 1 The Orthodox Account of Mitigation
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Mitigation in Context
  • 2.1 The compensatory principle
  • 2.2 Mitigation as a limitation on damages
  • 2.3 Recovery greater than factual loss
  • 3 A Brief History of Mitigation
  • 3.1 Early authorities
  • 3.2 The decision in British Westinghouse
  • 3.3 The influence of McGregor on Damages
  • 4 Mitigation: The Current Orthodoxy
  • 4.1 The tripartite exposition
  • 4.1.1 Avoidable loss rule
  • 4.1.2 Reasonable attempts rule
  • 4.1.3 Avoided loss rule
  • 4.2 Three rules or two?
  • 2 The Avoidable Loss Rule
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Application
  • 2.1 The reasonableness test
  • 2.2 Reasonableness as a ‘question of fact’
  • 2.3 The case-by-case approach
  • 3 Effect on Damages
  • 3.1 The all-or-nothing view
  • 3.2 The ‘guillotine’ heuristic
  • 3.3 Counterfactual assessment
  • 3 The Avoided Loss Rule
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Application
  • 2.1 McGregor’s summary
  • 2.2 The directness test
  • 3 The Effect on Damages
  • 3.1 Recovery greater than factual loss
  • 3.2 The ‘ignoring’ heuristic
  • 4 Flawed Explanations of Mitigation
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 What is an ‘Explanation’?
  • 3 Economic Efficiency
  • 4 Self-reliance
  • 5 Co-operation
  • 6 Remoteness
  • 7 Fairness
  • 8 A Combination of the Above?
  • Part 2 Explanation
  • 5 Developing the Causal Explanation
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Judicial support
  • 3 Scholarly scepticism
  • 4 Beyond ‘But-For’
  • 4.1 ‘Common-sense’ causation
  • 4.2 Hart and Honoré’s theory
  • 4.2.1 The ‘central notion’ of cause
  • 4.2.2 Abnormality principle
  • 4.2.3 Choice principle
  • 4.3 Experimental support
  • 4.3.1 Abnormality principle
  • 4.3.2 Choice principle
  • 5 Pre-empting objections
  • 5.1 Philosophical
  • 5.2 Empirical
  • 5.3 Semantic
  • 6 Mitigation as Causation
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Explaining Mitigation
  • 3 Restating Mitigation
  • 3.1 The replication rule
  • 3.2 The exceptionality rule
  • 3.3 The significance of choice
  • 3.4 The effect on damages
  • 4 Justifying Mitigation
  • 5 Comparing the Orthodox Account
  • 7 Puzzles Resolved
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 No ‘Duty’ to Mitigate
  • 3 Universal Application
  • 3.1 Causes of action
  • 3.2 The defendant’s fault
  • 4 Temporal Scope
  • 4.1 Actual knowledge of the breach
  • 4.2 Acceptance of anticipatory repudiation
  • Part 3 Restatement
  • 8 Avoidable Loss
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Applying the ‘Reasonableness’ Test
  • 2.1 The replication rule
  • 2.1.1 Repair
  • 2.1.2 Replacement
  • 2.1.3 Extrication
  • 2.1.4 Refusing the defendant’s offer
  • 2.1.5 Pressing for performance
  • 2.2 The exceptionality rule
  • 2.2.1 Refusing the defendant’s offer
  • 2.2.2 Repair or replacement?
  • 2.2.3 Incurring excessive cost
  • 2.2.4 The Ruxley debate
  • 3 The Effect on Damages
  • 3.1 Where mitigation applies
  • 3.1.1 Applying the counterfactual
  • 3.1.2 Cost to the claimant or defendant?
  • 3.2 Where mitigation does not apply
  • 3.2.1 Recovery of factual loss
  • 3.2.2 No special rule for expenses
  • 4 Procedural matters
  • 4.1 Question of fact or law
  • 4.2 The burden of proof
  • 9 Avoided Loss
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Applying the British Westinghouse test
  • 2.1 The claimant chose not to replicate
  • 2.1.1 Repair
  • 2.1.2 Replacement
  • 2.1.3 Extrication
  • 2.1.4 Other choices
  • 2.2 The claimant had no choice to replicate
  • 2.3 The claimant did replicate
  • 2.4 Replication ‘as nearly as possible’
  • 3 The Effect on Damages
  • 3.1 Where the replication rule applies
  • 3.2 Where the replication rule does not apply
  • 4 Distinct ‘avoided loss’ cases
  • 4.1 Earned benefits
  • 4.2 Replication by third parties
  • 10 The Market Rule
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 The Market Rule as Mitigation
  • 2.1 What explains the market rule?
  • 2.2 Applying the replication rule
  • 2.3 The Sale of Goods Act 1979
  • 3 (Dis)applying the Market Rule
  • 3.1 No available market
  • 3.2 Claimant was unaware of the breach
  • 3.3 Claimant was legally ‘locked in’
  • 3.4 Claimant was unable to access the market
  • 4 The Effect on Damages
  • 11 Relationship to Other Doctrines
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Intervening Acts by the Claimant
  • 2.1 The replication rule
  • 2.2 The exceptionality rule
  • 2.3 The effect on damages
  • 3 Betterment
  • 3.1 Claimant chose to supersede
  • 3.2 Claimant had no choice but to supersede
  • 3.3 The effect on damages
  • 4 Remoteness
  • 4.1 What is remoteness?
  • 4.2 Practical differences
  • 4.3 Remoteness as a limitation
  • 4.4 The ‘scope of duty’ rule
  • 5 Contributory Negligence
  • 5.1 Temporal scope
  • 5.2 Conduct
  • 5.3 Legal effect
  • 5.4 The primacy of mitigation
  • 6 The White & Carter Limitation
  • 12 Conclusion
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Causation
  • 3 Choice
  • 4 Rights
  • 5 Loss
  • Index