Common Law Remedies:

Claiming Damages for Beach of Terms

Alice hires Gerry, a builder, to renovate her holiday home kitchen according to an architect's specifications. Normally, Alice rents out he holiday home for a profit of $1000 a week via AirZZ. Gerry tells Alice the job will be finished in one week. Alice is happy as she had told Gerry about a 2-week rental booking to a french tourist called Jacques, starting in 8 days.

Unfortunately, Gerry is 2 weeks late completing the work. This means Alice is unable to rent out the holiday home and so does not make the $2000 from renting the property to Jacques.

Also, during these extra two weeks, Alice decides to park her car at the holiday home garage to show any potential burglars/robbers that the the place is not empty. But the car, worth $16,000 is stolen from the holiday home, as it does not have a secure garage like her house does.

Assume that Gerry is in breach of contract. Specifically, he has breached a warranty about the time to finish the work.

Regarding remedies under the common law, can Alice claim damages for the lost rent and the value of replacing the stolen car? In your answer, consider causation, reasonable foreseeability of loss using Hadley v Baxendale, and the duty to mitigate losses.

IRAC ANSWERS ONLY