Lessons · Law foundations · breach of contract
Breach: what was promised, what was done, what it cost
A breach of contract claim has four lines: a contract existed, it required this, that was not done, and loss followed.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The file arrives as a grievance about a supplier who let everybody down. The four lines turn it into a claim or show that it is not one, and the second line, what the contract actually required, is where most of those grievances quietly end.
How to think about it
Quote the clause before you describe the failure. If the clause cannot be quoted, the claim is about a promise nobody wrote down, and that is a different and much harder problem.
Worked example
Line 1: there was a contract, and here is where it is.Date, parties, and the page the clause is on.
Line 2: it required delivery of the goods by the stated date.Quoted from the clause itself, in the contract's own words.
Line 3: they arrived eleven days after that date.The gap between the clause and what happened, stated as a fact with a date.
Line 4: the loss that followed, with the figure and where it comes from.An invoice, a cancelled order, a replacement bought at a higher price.
Your turn
Write the word for a breach that goes to the root of the bargain rather than a minor slip.
A breach that goes to the root of the bargain: a breach
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Describing the failure without quoting the promise. A late delivery only matters if the contract said when, and files that skip line two collapse the first time somebody asks where it says that.