In 1954, White & Carter (Councils) Ltd. entered into a three-year contract to display advertisements for McGregor's garage company on litter bins.

In 1957, with the contract set to expire, McGregor's sales manager, Mr Ward, renewed the contract; however, later that day, when the company learnt of this, they informed White & Carter that Ward had no authority to enter into such a contract, writing to them saying: Dear Sirs, we regret that our Mr. Ward signed an order today continuing the lamp post advertisements for a further period of 3 years.

The House of Lords held, 3 to 2, that the claimants could recover the contract price and were not obliged to take steps to mitigate their loss because there was an automatic claim in debt.

There was no obligation to accept the breach, even though it was unfortunate that the claimants had 'saddled themselves with an unwanted contract causing an apparent waste of time and money'.

Lord Hodson said it was not a discretionary remedy, and a 'novel equitable doctrine that a party was not to be held to his contract unless the court in a given instance thought it reasonable so to do' was not going to be introduced.