Damages in professional negligence cases

Damages, in the words of Lord Blackburn in Livingston v Rawyards Coal Co[1]

“are the sum which will put the party who has suffered loss in the same position he would have been if he had not sustained the wrong”.

This rule has been adapted to contracts by replacing the words “he had not sustained the wrong” with “the contract had been performed”. This adaptation of the rule and the rule itself works well in simple cases. Take for example the case of a property sold by S to C that S warrants is free of blight. C buys the property. It is blighted. C’s damages place C in the position it would have been in if the property were indeed free of blight – this is C’s hypothetical situation. C’s damages are the difference between the value of the blighted property and the

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