Clark v Macourt: Proper compensation or a one million dollar windfall?
Pacta sunt servanda is a fundamental legal principle, which states that agreements must be kept. Thus, various wrongs, including breaches of contracts, entitle one to the most common remedy at common law: an award of damages. The basic principles that govern the assessment of contract damages are taught to students in every Law School. However, the application of those principles is not always easy because careful attention has to be paid to the individual circumstances of each case. The conclusion that the courts must strive to achieve is compensation of claimants for the actual loss sustained, in order to place them in the same position they would have been in if the contract had been performed. This paper argues that in a recent decision of the High Court of Australia in Clark v Macourt, the claimant was put in a position superior to that she would have been in if the contract had been performed. It summarises and questions the various parts of the decision to show that the million-dollar award over compensated the claimant.