LEGAL WRITING AND RESEARCH

Legal Writing and Research



Memorandum

Draft 11

FROM: 721771

TO: Jill Baxter

RE: Wedding Dress (Miss. Maria Manning)

DATE: 11.1.2010

FACTS:

As we know that the Mrs. Manning wishes to sue Sally Singer for breach of contract. The agreement was Miss Manning hired sally to sew her wedding dress and nine matching bridesmaid's dress, and the agreement was on April 23 and sally she have to did the ten dress before wedding day it was on July 17. I am going to analyze whether Manning can recover damages for under her claim of breach of contract against Singer.

ISSUE

Mrs. Manning can recover damages for emotional distress under her claim of breach of contract against Singer?

ANALISISY

Recover Damages for Emotional Distress

A limitation more firmly rooted in tradition generally denies recovery for emotional disturbance or "mental distress" resulting from breach of contract, even if the limitations of unforeseeable and uncertainty can be overcome. Under restatement second § 353, recovery for emotional disturbance is allowed, even absent bodily harm. If the contract or the breach is of such a kind that serious emotional distress was a particularly likely result. It could be argued that the real basis of this rule is that such recovery is likely to result in disproportionate compensation, and that the rule could therefore be subsumed under the more general rule of restatement second § 351. Whatever that basis of the limitation, courts have not applied it inflexibly. Some courts have looked to the nature of the contract and made exceptions, as under the restatement of second rule where serious emotional disturbance was a particularly likely result of breach.

Other courts have looked to the nature of the breach and allowed damages for emotional disturbance on the ground that the breach of contract was reprehensible, perhaps amounting to a tort, or that it caused bodily harm. We now consider in same detail this role of willfulness in assessing contract damages.



On Court of Appeals of Alabama in case Browning v. Fies, 58 so 931; 1912 Ala. App. in this case the facts was [The promisor and promisee entered into an agreement whereby the promisor would provide transportation for a wedding party on the day of the promisee's wedding. The promisor breached the agreement, and the promisee and others in the wedding were greatly inconvenienced. The promisee filed suit against the promisor for breach of contract. The damages claimed and sought to be recovered were for the actual financial loss arising out of the breach of the contract, and damages for mental suffering, physical pain, humiliation, and mortification. A jury returned a verdict in favor of the promisee. The promisee appealed from the judgment entered on the verdict as an insufficient award of damages. The court reversed and held that when a contract was entered into under special circumstances within the knowledge of both parties, the natural and proximate consequence of a breach entailed special damages upon the promisee. Furthermore, the court ruled that damages recoverable for the breach of a contract could include injury to the promisee's feelings ...