Contractual reliance damages

The term ‘reliance interest’ was coined by Fuller and Perdue, whose classic article ‘The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages’ first clarified and explored the different possible objectives of damages for breach of contract. The aim of damages protecting the reliance interest is, according to Fuller and Perdue, ‘… to put the plaintiff in as good a position as he was in before the promise was made’. This can alternatively and preferably be expressed as aiming to put the claimant into as good a position as she would have been in if no contract had been made.