Me an extra three weeks to deliver, but I had to give them a

Discount and find someone else to clean up the mess

That Glaptech made. Fortunately, I have a cousin in New

York who could do it, but he charged New York prices, and I

Had to pay him to fix the program that I had already paid

Glaptech to write. I actually lost money on the job. Plus, this

is a small town, and it certainly didn't do my reputation any

good to be late. I just hope that I don't lose a customer

Because of this.

Mrs Hayes: Well, if you do lose the customer and they were a

Long-standing customer and Glaptech knew it, and if we can

Prove all of that at trial, you might be able to recover what

are called 'consequential damages'. I'll get back to that in

A second. First of all, they breached the contract by not

Delivering the goods that you had ordered, that is to say a

Program that would work on both PC and Mac. You were

Able to fix the problem. Did you get in touch with anyone

besides your cousin, say, another programmer here in town?

Mr Anderson: Nope, I had no time and I wasn't going to mess

Around.

Part II

Mr Anderson: Nope, I had no time and I wasn't going to mess

Around.

Mrs Hayes: Ah, that could be a bit of a problem. You're

Supposed to mitigate your damages, which means that you

Had to make a reasonable effort to solve the problem as

inexpensively as possible. You don't have to get the lowest

possible price, but in the best-case scenario, you'd have

Shopped around at least a little, preferably locally. If we

can't show the court that another programmer would have

Charged more or less the same as your cousin and done

the same quality work, you'll only be able to recover what a

Local programmer would have charged for the work.

Mr Anderson: That's not fair. I really want to make these guys

pay. This whole thing really upset me. I couldn't sleep and I

Lost a lot of weight from the stress.

Mrs Hayes: Well, since this is a contract case, you can't

recover for your emotional injury - you're only entitled to get

What you would have gotten if the contract had been

fulfilled. In the same way,you can't get punitive damages -

you can't 'punish' someone for not fulfilling a contract, you

can only get what's called the 'benefit of your bargain'. On

The other hand, you may be able to get what I mentioned

Earlier, consequential damages, which are damages that

Flow from the result of the breach of contract. Did they know

what your deadline was?

Mr Anderson: Yes, I told them on the phone a dozen times.

Mrs Hayes: Good. I need to look closely at the contract. If it

doesn't waive consequential damages, you should be able to

recover the 10% discount that you had to give the ferry

Company. We just need to show that they could have

foreseen that you'd have to give your customer a discount if

The program they designed was unsatisfactory and had to be

Fixed, thus forcing you to deliver the goods late. That

shouldn't be hard. As I mentioned before, if you lose the

Customer, you may be able to recover damages for that as

Well. But I have to warn you that proving that they could have

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 924