Legal remedies and their applications

Breach of Contract Order

Breach of Contract with Smith and the University

A breach of contract has occurred in this situation from a legal standpoint because by law this occurs when a party (like Mr. Smith) fails to carry out, accurately and unerringly his responsibilities, however, in the current situation the negotiations for both sides were made ("Breach of contract," n.d.). For example, when X University replaced their head coach with Smith, consent was made by the official commissioners of the University and guaranteed him that a bare minimum sum of $10,000 would be accessible for basketball scholarships during Smith's first year as a coach for them. In conclusion, on January 7, Smith and X University agreed and signed a hand written agreement where Smith pledged to serve as coach for one year which would start on September 1. The University agreed to pay Smith an income of $14,500, too, and at that time there was no mention made in the deal to the subject of basketball scholarships.

Then on April 2, Smith found out that there would only be $1,000 available for the scholarships for the upcoming school year, therefore, he responded by wanting to cancel the contract on the grounds of fraud because of X University's first promise to at least give $10,000 as a minimum in scholarships. However, when Smith took the contract to court, the court denied him the right to cancel the agreements, and the choice was confirmed on when Smith appealed their decision. Since the decision was not settled for Smith in court he told X University that he still would not carry out his obligations in the contract and he was going to go to work for Y University. Yet before Smith was able to sign a contract with Y University, X University filed an deed looking for a) detailed information of Smith's contract with X University and b) an order to put a stop to Smith from being able to coach basketball at any other university or school.

There should not be any relief made to X University for the simple fact that even though they avoided and blatantly failed to mention the scholarships even though they gave their word that they would offer a minimum of $10,000 yet Smith learned later that there would only be $1,000 available for the entire school year. From the information gathered on both X University and Smith this is a situation for both parties are breaching their contract, and there would be no breach of contract with Smith if X University would have stuck to their word about the basketball scholarships like Smith agreed to work there for one year. Yet, when Smith found out about how the scholarship inquiry was probably only a way to persuade him to sign on to the contract that is when he decided to notify X University Staff and tell them he will not follow through with his of the deal either. This is call renunciation because renunciation takes place when a person/business declines to do what is expected of them in an agreement between them and another party regardless of whether it is spoken or indirect ("Breach of contract," n.d.). This means that even though X University did not mention anymore about the scholarships and how much would be granted at the time Smith signed on, he was aware and was told by the administration of the University that there would be scholarship funds but there was not.

Furthermore, I do not think that X University deserves any relief for the fact that they were guilty of a "Breach of Condition" which is a secondary infringement that happens when a party is looked at as failure to pay as a breach of circumstances, therefore, I feel Smith had a right to terminate his half of the agreement considering the University failed to meet their quota on the amount of scholarship money that was promised ("Breach of contract," n.d.). Since X University has taken Smith to court on the breach of contract, they won in the matter, therefore Smith is still supposed to follow through with his coaching for the year with no scholarship monies and additional support. In issuing an award of damages, the court has found that Smith was in the wrong, so they will either consider the remoteness which is the repercussions of the breach that Smith is lawfully accountable for or the measure of damages which are the standards upon which the defeat or harm is appraised or computed in financial stipulations. Therefore, if the court finds there should be consequences for Smith then they may also be able to penalize him with damages, as well, and after reevaluating the amount of damages payable to X University, the only amount that should be paid if any to X University is that they find another coach, but legally Smith will only have to compensate for what would have happened if he would have been able to get out of the agreement which means that he will have to follow out the rest of his coaching year with X University which is known as a "expectation loss" ("Breach of contract," n.d.).

Since damages are not honored for non-economic failures, according to the Breach of Contract found online, like mental distress and loss of enjoyment, that is an advantage for Smith; because I feel that the contract's purpose was to promote a college basketball coach if he would accept the scholarship and income, instead of it encouraging contentment or pleasure to X University (n.d.). I also strongly feel that X University must take practical steps to lessen their loss by trying to find an alternative method of carrying out the contract. By doing so, X University could start by discussing the contract they will put together in looking for a coach to replace Smith, and they should be honest and sincere and make sure they do not say anything that they do not plan on keeping because two court cases in a row will not look good in their favor because it shows a pattern of doing the same thing twice and not getting away with it by thinking they could actually pull it off ("Breach of contract," n.d.).

X University, I feel, does not deserve any liquidated damages on top of any other damages they claim to have lost, and if University X had stated that Smith did cause them to suffer damages it should have been looked as a penalty clause because the situation of Smith wanting to terminate his employment was not a damage that did not hurt someone or cause them to lose anything physical in the conditions and stipulations of the agreement. The court should not be able to ask for an excessive amount of money because this is not a case of penalties even though it may be described as so to the court. Furthermore, no cost should be recovered that is reasonable because Smith did no different than X University ("Breach of contract," n.d.).