REPUDIATION OF INFORMAL CONTRACT

Mirimskaya v Evans [2007] All ER (D) 24 (Sep), 5 September 2007

In Mirimskaya v Evans [2007] All ER (D) 24 (Sep), 5 September 2007 Mr Richard Fernyhough QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, held that the parties had entered into an informal contract relating to the carrying out of the works. The fact that they had not concluded a formal contract did not preclude the existence of an informal contract between the parties. However, he held that the defendants were not entitled to recover two of the unpaid instalments from the claimant because they had not performed any of the work attributable to these payments and so they would have been recoverable by the claimant on the ground that there had been a total failure of consideration. The claim of the defendants was rather a claim to recover damages in respect of the loss of profit which they suffered as a result of the claimant’s repudiation of the contract.