MANN V PATERSON CONSTRUCTIONS PTY LTD: THE INTERSECTION OF DEBT, DAMAGES AND QUANTUM MERUIT

Abstract

The High Court’s decision in Mann v Paterson Constructions Pty Ltd (2019) 267 CLR 560 raised several fundamental questions of legal principle regarding the relationship between the law of contract and the law of restitution in Australia. Many important propositions emerge from the case. Perhaps the most controversial is that where a contract for the performance of work is brought to a premature end following a repudiation by the party who contracted for that work, the (innocent) partial performer of work for which no unconditional right to payment has accrued is entitled to recover non-contractual quantum meruit in the alternative to claiming damages for the lost bargain. This article defends this holding as well as the usual imposition of a ‘contractual ceiling’ on the measure of non-contractual quantum meruit claims.