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[[Exemplary damages| | “[[Exemplary damages|Exemplary]]”, or [[punitive damages|“punitive” damages]] — ''punishing'' a [[defendant]] for the contumelious or high-handed ''way'' it wronged a [[plaintiff]] — isn’t “''contumelious''” a great word? — goes ''beyond'' the philosophical aims of a [[contractual remedy]] — to give a fellow what he bargained for — and so are not available as [[damages]] for [[breach of contract]]. As Lord Atkinson put it, in the great case of {{casenote|Addis|Gramophone}}: | ||
:“In many other cases of [[breach of contract]] there may be circumstances of malice, [[fraud]], defamation, or violence, which would sustain an action of [[tort]] as an alternative remedy to an action for [[breach of contract]]. If one should select the former mode of redress, he may, no doubt, recover [[exemplary damages]], or what is sometimes styled vindictive damages; but if he should choose to seek redress in the form of an action for [[breach of contract]], he lets in all the consequences of that form of action: {{citer|Thorpe|Thorpe|1832|3B.&Ad.|580}}. One of these consequences is, I think, this: that he is to be paid adequate compensation in money for the loss of that which he would have received had his contract been kept, and no more.” | :“In many other cases of [[breach of contract]] there may be circumstances of malice, [[fraud]], defamation, or violence, which would sustain an action of [[tort]] as an alternative remedy to an action for [[breach of contract]]. If one should select the former mode of redress, he may, no doubt, recover [[exemplary damages]], or what is sometimes styled vindictive damages; but if he should choose to seek redress in the form of an action for [[breach of contract]], he lets in all the consequences of that form of action: {{citer|Thorpe|Thorpe|1832|3B.&Ad.|580}}. One of these consequences is, I think, this: that he is to be paid adequate compensation in money for the loss of that which he would have received had his contract been kept, and no more.” | ||