Remedies in UK Law

Remedies are the law's response to a wrong (or, more precisely, to a cause of action). When, exceptionally, a just response to a breach of contract so requires, the court should be able to grant the discretionary remedy of requiring a defendant to account to the plaintiff for the benefits he has received from his breach of contract.

The law recognises that damages are not always a sufficient remedy for breach of contract. Even when awarding damages, the law does not adhere slavishly to the concept of compensation for financially measurable loss. When the circumstances require, damages are measured by reference to the benefit obtained by the wrongdoer. Further, in certain circumstances an account of profits is ordered in preference to an award of damages.

The court will have regard to all the circumstances, including the subject matter of the contract, the purpose of the contractual provision which has been breached, the circumstances in which the breach occurred, the consequences of the breach and the circumstances in which relief is being sought. A useful general guide, although not exhaustive, is whether the plaintiff had a legitimate interest in preventing the defendant's profit-making activity and, hence, in depriving him of his profit.

Insofar as Mr. Stamler contends that there is inherent jurisdiction in the court to make effective the remedies that it grants, this seems to me merely another way of submitting that, where the power exists to grant the remedy, there must also be inherent in that power the power to make ancillary orders to make that remedy effective.

The restitutionary and compensatory provisions of section 5 do not in terms identify the person or persons against whom the remedies are available. But it is difficult to see how the section 5 restitutionary remedy could be available against anyone other than the other party to the transaction in question or the party to whom, under the transaction in question, the investor's money or property had been paid or transferred.

But an unsuccessful applicant for accommodation under the Act of 1977, confronted by an adverse decision of the housing authority as to, say, the question of his intentional homelessness, may strictly need not only an order of certiorari to quash the adverse decision but also an order of mandamus to the housing authority to determine the question afresh according to law. I have said that the court has no power to substitute its own decision for that of the housing authority.

What, however, does distinguish user damages from other compensatory damages is the fact that they are in general awarded because the defendant has made improper use of an asset of the claimant. In economic terms, there has been a transfer of value for which the wrongdoer must account. However, even so, they would under Blake be subject to strict judicial control through the requirement for exceptional circumstances.