How can loss be difficult to quantify, but be a familiar type for which damages are frequently awarded? Richard and Damian Taylor. Contract Law Directions (2019 7 ed). pp. 318-319. As to the application of the law to the facts of the case Lord Reed continued by saying, at paras [98]–[99]: I now quote Lord Reed. Doesn't the emboldened phrase contradict itself? This is a case brought by a commercial entity whose only interest in the defendants’ performance of their obligations under the covenants was commercial. Indeed, a restrictive covenant which went beyond what was necessary for the reasonable protection of the claimant’s commercial interests would have been unenforceable. The substance of the claimant’s case is that it suffered financial loss as a result of the defendants’ breach of contract. The effect of the breach of contract was to expose the claimant’s business to competition which would otherwise have been avoided. The natural result of that competition was a loss of profits and possibly of goodwill. The loss is difficult to quantify, and some elements of it may be inherently incapable of precise measurement. Nevertheless, it is a familiar type of loss, for which damages are frequently awarded. It is possible to quantify it in a conventional manner, as is demonstrated by Mr Hine’s report. The case is not one where the breach of contract has resulted in the loss of a valuable asset created or protected by the right which was infringed. Considered in isolation, the first defendant’s breach of the confidentiality covenant might have been considered to be of that character, but in reality the claimant’s loss is the cumulative result of breaches of a number of obligations, of which the non-compete and non-solicitation covenants have been treated as the most significant, as explained in para 17 above.
I don't believe it is contradictory. Some kinds of injury are inherently difficult to calculate (e.g. damage to reputation caused by slander) but the judge or jury, as the case may be, will review the evidence and do the best they can. Lord Reed says as much in paragraph 38 of his judgment. ... and as a practical matter, it appears the damages, in this case, were both calculable and supported by evidence. The Court's primary focus was not whether damages could be calculated but rather the measure of damages (i.e. the method of calculation).
No The term "sword and shield" is allegorical rather than legal and may be called up in any number of contexts. Such as ... Waiver of privilege In the particular instance, Anthem was claiming that the reports were privileged and hence protected from discovery, presumably because they were prepared in contemplation of litigation - this litigation, one supposes. However, privilege is lost or waived if the privileged information is disclosed, as it was by relying on the conclusion of the report in its defense. As such, the entire suite of reports is no longer protected. Basically, if you want to keep privilege you have to keep what is privileged secret. Note, the could have lost privilege if they had disclosed the findings of the report in any way such as by press release or by simply leaving the document in a public place. In this context, the judge is stating that they cannot use the "shield" of privilege to protect a report that they have used as a "sword" to make a attack their opponent.
(Standard disclaimer: I am not your lawyer; I am not here to help you.) Under American common law, the distinction here would relate to the harm to B: either a damages issue or a "special harm" issue. The Restatement elements of defamation are falsity, publication, fault, and inherent actionability or special harm. See Rest. 2d Torts § 558. The last element captures the traditional doctrine that slander (not libel) is only actionable if it falls into one of four or five specific categories ("slander per se"), or if it actually causes economic injury. Your example doesn't seem to fit into any of the special categories. But see Rest. 2d Torts § 573 (imputations affecting business or office). If the statement to C is oral rather than written, and C doesn't believe it or otherwise nothing comes of the statement, B may not be able to prove special harm and therefore fail to recover anything. If D, on the contrary, avoided doing business with B, B may be able to show special harm supporting a claim. Similarly, C's disbelief or D's belief may be relevant to determining the actual damages B suffered and is therefore entitled to recover from A.
Here be dragons Financial services regulation is very complicated. Non-compliance can have severe consequences. Professional legal counsel could assist in navigating the complex web of law, regulation, and precedent. It may seem unfair that things are so difficult - that's a result of financial services being inherently complicated topics, ones which are fought over by wealthy people/firms, and where there has been a long history of dodgy dealings of many kinds. As an example of the difficulties involved, the law in general would like to distinguish between Investment advice given to a specific individual, taking all their personal circumstances and wishes into account, and Newspaper reports giving dispassionate information to the general public about the movement of share prices, but not telling them what to do in response; or completely generic advice like &quot;it's good when the wiggly line goes up&quot;. The second is &quot;meant&quot; to be basically OK and not the concern of the regulators; the first one is where all kinds of legal duties and protections come into play, since people might be disadvantaged by advisors who are inept or unscrupulous. Intuitively, D's app is somewhere between these, because it's not as if users are sitting down with a financial advisor and making trades, but they're also not just consuming generic data like a stock ticker. There is an element of prediction, expressing a range of envisaged outcomes, and potentially with &quot;extra filters&quot; that add some more personalization. So what does the law say about this? Just looking at the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, Part II Chapter 12 and its form after two decades of tweaking tells us that there is a lot of complicated detail just in this regulation. We don't have to read or understand the words to see that there are a lot more of them, taking the apparently simple distinction above and trying to capture or carve out a range of activities not originally envisaged. If we do start looking at the actual words, we can see several concepts that become relevant - &quot;advice on the merits&quot;, &quot;leading or enabling persons to buy or sell&quot;, and so on. These, and their predecessor words in older laws, have been thrashed out in the courts in ways that are not completely obvious. A recent case in the Court of Appeal, Adams v Options Personal Pensions UK LLP [2021] EWCA Civ 474, looks at some of this territory in paragraphs 69-82. We see here some phrases about whether the context of the information presented includes elements of comparison, evaluation, or persuasion; influencing the decision of the recipient as a result of a value judgement; giving purely factual information as opposed to matters such as a characterization of risk; and others. But, as quoted here from another decision, Rubenstein v HSBC Bank plc [2011] EWHC 2304 (QB), &quot;To attempt any greater definition of the giving of advice in an investment context would be unwise and is probably impossible&quot;, which tells us that it's not easy to decide whether developer D's app is in or out. You say &quot;the app won't instruct users whether to buy or not&quot; but courts have found a concept of &quot;implied advice&quot;, where the context of the giving of information means that the customer will take it as advice. In Australia, the Federal Court recently found an implied recommendation, amounting to personal advice, had been given in a certain situation when customers were told supposedly general advice - even though there was an up-front disclaimer (ASIC v Westpac [2019] FCAFC 187). The specific law and facts are not the same as in this question, but the observation holds that disclaimers may not help if the surrounding marketing is communicating something else. Similar remarks apply to the predictive model, where there is also plenty of regulation. In the FCA's Conduct of Business Sourcebook 4.5A.14, for example, there are binding rules about information on future performance. Whether these rules apply to what D is doing, and how they can comply, are hard questions. There is an entire publication, the Perimeter Guidance Manual, about how to know whether someone is covered by the regulator, but even that is full of maybes. Aside from concerns with the regulators themselves, users may be very upset with D from time to time, and their anger might spill over into a legal claim. There is, again, a large body of law to do with such topics as negligence in giving investment advice. All of the above is evidence that the question of compliance for a particular app or business is not completely simple. Professional advice can look at the whole context, as well as relevant law, and assist D in understanding their options.
It might or it might not be fraud. The outcome will depend on how the facts and evidence are interpreted at trial. A more general version of this question is: If two parties discuss and orally agree to X; then sign a contract that states they agree to Y, what are the parties bound to? X? Y? Or something else? In your version, X is a fraudulent statement. And Y is an obfuscated writing. One party will argue fraud. The other will argue not fraud on the basis that all the facts were disclosed in writing. The party alleging fraud will carry the burden of proof. The standard of proof will be preponderance of evidence (more than 50%). Generally speaking, written evidence outweighs oral evidence if not accompanied by substantiating facts. Substantiating facts could be: emails or other written correspondence, a prior history or pattern of making false claims to others regarding this investment, the respective behavior of the parties after the agreement was made or anything else that corroborates the oral testimony presented at trial.
Venue The location where you file the claim is the court that will hear it unless: you both agree the judge orders a different venue based on submissions from the parties (unlikely in a small claim) Costs Costs awards in small claims are rare and generally do not extend to the legal fees and if they do, the amount is capped. Costs for reasonable expenses of witnesses are slightly more common. In general, costs are limited to what is reasonable - to get the costs of travel and accommodation for the Liverpool solicitor, the party would have to argue that there was no available equivalent representation available locally. This might be arguable if you need a QC expert in say, international maritime law, it seems unlikely for a small claims matter. Personal Comment Don't go to court for £100 - settle the damn thing or walk away. In the time and worry you spend on it you could earn that sum five times over.
My understanding of contract law is the original fees are implied if no new explicit agreement is signed and therefore the invoice amount should be $1,000. Is that correct? No. At the outset, the presumption that the price would be equal to that of filings covered in the engagement letter is inaccurate. The actual terms of the engagement letter might support a different conclusion, though, which is why I asked about them. The offer in the engagement letter seems to be just a marketing practice, and as such it is neither uncommon nor unlawful. The rationale for that marketing practice is that offering [in this case] the first two tax filings at a lower price is likelier to persuade new customers to try the services the company provides. Thereafter, those customers will be billed what the company would call a normal or ordinary price. Statutory law does not provide specific constraints to how greater the ordinary price. But the details would help ascertain whether an excessive, unannounced increase amounts to what is known as unfair and misleading practices or otherwise contravenes consumer protection laws. These laws vary by jurisdiction and might or might not defeat the argument that the customer bears the risk of mistake. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts at §154(b).
In the event of a dispute, the person resolving the matter, probably an arbitrator in the case of a commission dispute between two realtors and either an arbitrator or a judge and jury depending upon what your listing agreement says about that issue, would hear the testimony from both parties and decide. The intent of the parties is supposed to govern in cases of clerical errors, but a signed document has a lot of weight, especially in such a prominent term. It is a little hard from the way the question is posed to determine who is willing to correct the typo and who insists on enforcing the contract containing the typo.