Anglia Television Ltd v Reed

Anglia Television Ltd v Reed
Robert Reed, with Florence Henderson
Court	Court of Appeal of England and Wales
Citation(s)	[1972] 1 QB 60
Keywords
Contract, remedies

Anglia Television Ltd v Reed [1972] 1 QB 60 is an English contract law case, concerning the right to reliance damages for loss flowing from a breach of contract.

Facts[]

Anglia asked Robert Reed (who portrayed father Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch) to star in their TV film, The Man in the Wood, about an American man married to an English woman who has an adventure in an English wood. Reed withdrew just before filming was about to start. Anglia did not claim for loss of profits, because that was too uncertain. Instead they claimed wasted expenditure. Reed argued, based on Tindal CJ in (1835) 1 Bing NC 492, 498 that damages could not be claimed when incurred before a contract, that was wasted, thrown away.

Judgment[]

Lord Denning MR held that expenditure incurred before could be claimed, so long as it was within the contemplation of the parties. Here Reed would have known of considerable expense.

It is true that, if the defendant had never entered into the contract, he would not be liable, and the expenditure would have been incurred by the plaintiff without redress; but, the defendant having made his contract and broken it, it does not lie in his mouth to say he is not liable, when it was because of his breach that the expenditure has been wasted.

So not £854.65 awarded (after) but the full £2750 (before as well) for all the directors, designers, stage managers, and assistant managers' fees.

See also[]

• English contract law

Notes[]

References[]