DAMAGES AND MEDICAL CLAIMS

Damages and medical claims



Damages and medical claims

Q.1. Discuss the effectiveness of damages as a remedy for breach of contract and for negligence.

Damages can be stated as the basic remedy for breach of contract or negligence. The aggrieved party or the innocent party is entitled to claim damages according to this law. The effectiveness of damages lies in the fact that its purpose is in trying to put the innocent party that has suffered on account of the breach of contract and for negligence, on the same footing as it otherwise would have been, if the due process of the contract had been followed. This is not to suggest that damages always come out as the most effective remedies because in some cases they do not. This leads to awarding equitable remedies in certain cases. These could be related to injunction or specific performance.

Though the purpose of damages is to serve as a remedy for contracts that are breached, or for any other loss sustained by a party on account of negligence, yet the innocent party at times is not suitably compensated, thus putting a question mark over the effectiveness of damages as a remedy. As stated above, the purpose of awarding damages is to make sure that the wronged party is able to obtain what it would have obtained from the bargain otherwise. The aggrieved party is allowed to recover the amount that it likely suffered on account of the breach of contract. This in most cases does result in the aggrieved party being adequately compensated. However, this may not be the case always. Despite the awarding of equitable remedies, the wronged party may not be obtaining the compensation that exactly amounts to the loss it suffered.

There are different limitations that are imposed on recovering damages for the wronged or neglected party. The first major limitation arises because an individual or a party is liable to avoid losses to the extent that he or she could have on part of his efforts. If an individual for example, had the authority or capability to have avoided some of the losses on account of reasonable efforts on his part, or even if he could have alleviated or diminished those losses to some extent, then that individual cannot recover for that loss. This may put an aggrieved party at a certain disadvantage that would seriously limit its capability at aiming to recover those substantial charges that it claims of having undergone in the process of the breach of contract on part of the other party. The law does not allow the party to claim those losses that it could have avoided. So this exposes the aggrieved party to several situations of disadvantage. The wronged party may have had deliberately or unintentionally not taken some of the steps that could have avoided in losses not being curtailed, on the assumption that through the course of law they would be able to recover those ...