Smith v. Landstar Properties Inc is a very nice illustration of the fact
that damages for breach of contract are not confined to compensating for
consequential loss.

If I buy Grade A apples for making into juice, if the apples I am sold are
Grade B I am entitled to the difference in value between Grade A and Grade
B apples. It does not matter that Grade B apples are perfectly good fr my
purposes so that I suffer no loss, nor does it matter that the seller
makes no gain from his breach. Damages, in the first instance, are awarded
to vindicate my right to contractual performance, not to compensate for
consequential loss. I am entitled to the difference in value between what
I got and what I was promised and the absence of consequential loss is
irrelevant. For a SCC which stands for this proposition, see Bainton v
John Hallam Ltd [1920] 60 SCR 325, 54 DLR 537.

This principle is not confined to contracts for the sale of goods but
applies to all contracts. We can lose sight of this principle because
usually the consequential loss which is suffered as a result of breach is
greater than the difference in value between what was promised and what
was received, and the plaintiff understandably wants the greater sum.

So, just as with the sale of apples, the appropriate measure in this case
is the difference in value between what the claimant was promised and what
he got assessed at time of breach. Here that was easy to assess: you just
look to the market difference between a secured and an unsecured loan.

Finch CJ's exposition of this principle ([44]) is exemplary.

"Damages on the basis of an interest rate differential merely compensate the
plaintiff for the way in which the contract was actually performed, which
resulted from the defendant’s breach. The interest rate differential
between secured and unsecured loans was an appropriate measure of damages
in this case. It is based on the commercial value of the right infringed
and assesses the sum payable by reference to the interest rate that might
have been payable between willing parties."

For something by me which tries to explain at length why this result is
plainly right, see here

http://denning.law.ox.ac.uk/news/events_files/A_Golden_Victory_or_Not.pdf


As Finch CJ also makes clear, this case has nothing to do with restitution
for wrongs. I would also agree with Katy that the claim in tort for
negligent misrepresentation is doing no work in this case. No loss
consequent upon the misrepresntation was pleaded or proven as far as I can
see.

I can't let Professor Keating's suggestion that unjust enrichment really
is not a freestanding basis of liability go unchallenged. Certainly there
are some cases where the cause of action which gives rise to a claim for a
gain is a wrong. However, there are many cases where this is not so, the
recovery of mistaken payments is the easiest case. This case, however, was
nothing to do with unjust enrichment as a freestanding basis of liability.
Rob

--
Robert Stevens
Professor of Commercial Law
University College London