Maw v Jones[5] is contrary to established principles and was wrongly decided.Lord Loreburn held that £600 was not allowed, that he could only recover his six-month salary and no more.

If what happened in October, 1905, did not amount to a wrongful dismissal, it was, at all events, a breach of the plaintiff's right to act as manager during the six months and to earn the best commission he could make.

was intended to include salary for the six months, or merely damages because of the abrupt and oppressive way in which the plaintiff's services were discontinued, and the loss he sustained from the discredit thus thrown upon him.

They are, in my opinion, the salary to which the plaintiff was entitled for the six months between October, 1905, and April, 1906, together with the commission which the jury think he would have earned had he been allowed to manage the business himself.

And the rule as to damages in wrongful dismissal, or in breach of contract to allow a man to continue in a stipulated service, has always been, I believe, what I have stated.

My Lords, I concur in the entirety of the judgment delivered by my noble and learned friend on the woolsack, but I wish to add a few words as to the claim for damages on the ground that there has been an aggravation of the injury in consequence of the manner of dismissal.

Much of the difficulty which has arisen in this case is due to the unscientific form in which the pleadings, as amended, have been framed, and the loose manner in which the proceedings at the trial were conducted.

[5] In that case Mathew J, as he then was, during the argument, while counsel was urging, on the authority of Hartley v Harman,[6] that the measure of damages for the improper dismissal of an ordinary domestic servant was a month's wages and nothing more, no doubt interjected in the shape of a question the remark, “Have you ever heard that principle applied to a case where a false charge of misconduct has been made?” But the decision was that the direction of the judge at the trial was right.

The judge at the trial told the jury that they were not bound to limit the damages to the week's notice he had lost, but that they might take into consideration the time the plaintiff would require to get new employment—the difficulty he would have as a discharged apprentice in getting employment elsewhere—and it was on this precise ground the direction was upheld.

[10] If there be a tendency to create a fourth exception it ought, in my view, to be checked rather than stimulated; inasmuch as to apply in their entirety the principles on which damages are measured in tort to cases of damages for breaches of contract would lead to confusion and uncertainty in commercial affairs, while to apply them only in part and in particular cases would create anomalies, lead occasionally to injustice, and make the law a still more “lawless science” than it is said to be.

On the other hand, is that sum to be increased if it should be shewn that the debtor could have paid readily without any embarrassment, but refused with expression of contempt and contumely, from a malicious desire to injure his creditor?

This contention goes the length of affirming that in cases of wrongful dismissal it is beyond the competence of a jury to give what are called exemplary or vindictive damages, and it was this point that I desired to consider further.

No English case was cited which in terms decides this point against the plaintiff, and I have been unable to find one myself, though I am aware that Mr. Sedgwick, in his treatise on Damages (8th ed.

In the 1834 edition Mr. Chitty says: “There are instances in which the defendant may be regarded in the light of a wrong-doer in breaking his contract, and in such cases a greater latitude is allowed to the jury in assessing the damages.” And he cites Lord Sondes v Fletcher,[13] decided in 1822.

Thus we have the opinion of four eminent English judges as late as 1822, notwithstanding the fact that in form the action was for breach of contract only, sanctioning the award of exemplary damages.

Again, as late as 1849, on a question whether the damages given by a jury in a case of wrongful dismissal were excessive, no less distinguished a judge than Maule J., with whose judgment Cresswell J. and Wilde C.J.

It must be borne in mind that embezzlement was imputed to the plaintiff.”[14] Doubtless there are other dicta to the same effect scattered through the reports, some of which were cited by Mr. Duke; indeed, it could hardly fail to be so in view of the authorities which I have cited and the absence of any decided case to the contrary; at the same time it was quite possible that the strong opinion of so distinguished a text-writer as Mr. Sedgwick might lead casual readers to forget that the law of England was once clearly established to the contrary.

Lord Coleridge CJ pointed out that dismissal with an imputation might well be thought by a jury to hurt the plaintiff's prospects of finding another situation, and on that ground alone might give a legal claim to consequential damages within the ordinary rule.

Dealing with this incident of breach of promise cases, Sir Frederick Pollock in his Treatise on the Law of Torts, 8th ed., 1908, says at p. 560, “like results might conceivably follow in the case of other breaches of contract accompanied with circumstances of wanton injury or contumely”; and see the observations of Willes J. in Bell v Midland Ry Co[15] But when the law of damages is traced backwards, it will be found that the so-called exceptions, including that of dishonoured cheques, are merely recurrences to the old rule, which, it may be through the deference paid by our own text-writers to Mr. Sedgwick's opinion, has been sometimes forgotten or ignored.

The plaintiff has attempted to suggest that the manner of his dismissal has cast a slur upon his character, and has really endeavoured to claim damages for defamation and to turn the action for the loss of the benefit of the contract into an action of tort, with the result of attempting to give the jury a discretion uncontrolled by the true consideration, namely, what is the money loss to the plaintiff of losing the benefit of the contract?

But as the rest of your Lordships do not agree that the matter is concluded by authority or practice, I am willing and free to state my reckoning of the question as one of principle.

There can be no doubt that wrongful dismissal may be effected in circumstances and accompanied by words and acts importing an obloquy and causing an injury, any reasonable estimate of which in money would far outreach the balance of emolument due under the contract.

And I admit the highest regard for that judicial opinion which leans towards such a perfecting of the legal instrument as to enable it to provide a remedy in complete equation with the wrong suffered.

I may add that I do not think that the citation from Pothier made by the last-named author strengthens his position, for when that great jurist says that, in addition to payment to the servant of the “whole year” of his services, the master “peut être condamné aux dommages et intérêts du domestique,” he may only be referring to those commission perquisites and allowances which go to make up the full emoluments of the servant.

Yet, apart from the wrongful dismissal, and on the hypothesis that the defendants are to be held liable in the full amount of all the emoluments and allowances which would have been earned by the plaintiff but for the breach of contract, there seems nothing in these circumstances, singly or together, which would be recognized by the law as a separate ground of action.

A certain regret which accompanies the conclusion which I have reached on the facts of this particular case is abated by the consciousness that the settlement by your Lordships' House of the important question of principle and practice may go some length in preventing the intrusion of not a few matters of prejudice hitherto introduced for the inflation of damages in cases of wrongful dismissal and now definitely declared to be irrelevant and inadmissible on that issue.

[18]In 1997, Lord Steyn explained the current jurisprudence relating to the ratio of Addis in his judgment in Malik v Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA: I would accept, however, that ... the majority apparently thought they were applying a special rule applicable to awards of damages for wrongful dismissal.

No Law Lord said that an employee may not recover financial loss for damage to his employment prospects caused by a breach of contract.

[20]In 2001, Farley v Skinner further distinguished Addis, in holding that "the plaintiff's claim is not for injured feelings caused by the breach of contract.

Rather it is a claim for damages flowing from the surveyor's failure to investigate and report, thereby depriving the buyer of the chance of making an informed choice whether or not to buy resulting in mental distress and disappointment.