This principle, known as harm reduction, is an essential defence for many defendants. Mitigation is a contract law concept that requires a victim in a contract dispute to minimize damages resulting from a breach of contract. This means that the victim is required by law to act in a manner that mitigates both the effects of the violation and his or her own personal loss, and even though the victim who suffers personal harm through no fault of his or her own is obliged to take reasonable steps to avoid further losses and minimize the consequences of the harm. Examples of mitigation and mitigation obligations can be found in all types of contracts. Suppose a homeowner signs a contract with a roofing company to repair broken shingles on a leaking roof. The roofing company begins the work, removes the broken shingles and identifies the source of the leak. However, weeks pass and the roofers never return to finish the work. The owner never covers the hole left by the removed shingles and never hires another handyman to finish the job. As a result, the owner`s house is severely damaged by rot and mold.

If the owner sues the roofing company, his sentence will be significantly reduced by the judge. The judge reprimands the owner for his inability to mitigate the damage by covering the hole. McCague Borlack LLP is a member of Canadian Litigation Counsel, a national association of independent law firms. By combining CLC with Groupe Harmonie, our clients have access to legal excellence in North America, the UK and Europe. If a victim does not mitigate the harm, the court may refuse to award exorbitant harm that the victim could reasonably have avoided. The court evaluates the victim`s actions after the breach of contract to determine whether they took steps that a reasonable person would have taken in similar circumstances to minimize their losses. However, mitigation does not require the victim to take extreme measures or make significant sacrifices to avoid or minimize losses. This approach prevents injured parties from receiving redress in situations where they could reasonably have avoided their harm or minimized the costs and impact of their injuries. However, like many aspects of tort and contract law, mitigating situations can become quite complicated. If you were allowed to claim compensation for these losses, it would encourage accident victims to let the cost of the accident spiral out of control. In the event of bodily injury, you are entitled to compensation for all your damage resulting from the accident. In general, this includes things like: Mitigation in law is the principle that a party who has suffered damage (resulting from tort or breach of contract) must take reasonable steps to minimize the amount of damage suffered.

As the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada held in Redpath Industries Ltd. v. Cisco (The),[1][1] “It is generally accepted that a party who suffers damage as a result of a breach of contract is required to mitigate that damage, i.e. the infringer cannot be liable to pay avoidable losses that would result in an increase in the amount of damages payable to the injured party.” The burden of proof of the failure to mitigate damages lies with the defendant. Generally, a claimant does not have an obligation to mitigate the damage, but the damage can be mitigated if it has not taken appropriate measures to mitigate the damage.4 For example, the obligation to mitigate the damage cannot apply if the injured party does not have the financial means to mitigate the damage. There is no formula that can be used to assess mitigation obligation in all areas. In any event, it is important to consider mitigation and its application to the circumstances of each case in order to assess how damages might be awarded. Attenuation is a positive defense. The onus is on the defendant to prove that you did not make reasonable efforts to mitigate your losses.3 The doctrine of mitigating harm, also known as the doctrine of avoidable consequences, prevents an aggrieved party from compensating for damages that could have been avoided by reasonable efforts. The party responsible for the accident is not responsible for your avoidable losses because they did not cause them.

Although they caused the accident, it is the victim who is able to minimize the consequences. If you do not inflate or actively inflate your losses, the law will hold you accountable for the results. It will not require the defendant to pay avoidable losses. The amount you recover can be reduced if these losses could have been easily avoided. You lose compensation for being jointly and severally liable for the accident. Harm reduction reduces your reward for your post-accident behavior. You will lose compensation if you do not take reasonable steps to prevent the accumulation of your losses. This doctrine of mitigation was discussed in Red Deer College v. Michaels, [1976] 2 S.C.R. 324, where Laskin C.J. said at p.

331: If you are a party to a breach of contract and have suffered losses as a result, you are required to take reasonable and prudent steps to “mitigate” your damages. This does not mean that you cannot hold a party responsible for the breach, it simply means that you must make reasonable efforts to limit the scope and costs arising from the breach. By mitigating damages, all legal possibilities for financial recovery are preserved. In this article, we will discuss the basics of the mitigation obligation in contract law and cover some mitigation examples to explain how this concept works in real life. After a loss, a number of parties are responsible for mitigation, such as emergency and safety personnel and those responsible for automatic mitigation systems such as sprinklers. In the event that the immediate response to the loss is not as effective as expected, there may be ways to track these parties if they do not respond properly to the loss.