Are you searching for a skilled San Diego breach of contract attorney?  If your company is the victim of a breach of contract you need the experienced, proven guidance and strategies of the Watkins Firm.

Mitigating breach of contract losses is the first obligation of a California business when the other party has caused the breach of contract.  The party who is “harmed” must take all “reasonable, prudent and timely” actions necessary to mitigate breach of contract losses, and those expenses are the basis for the damages that must be paid as a result of the breach.

A skilled San Diego breach of contract attorney from the Watkins Firm can help you to implement a strategy to protect your interests and recover appropriate damages.  It is important to note our Courts cannot and will not force the other party to comply with the original terms of the contract (unless real estate is involved).  The Court will assess the efforts of the party who suffered the breach of contract, and the recoverable damages will usually be based upon the amount they had to expend to achieve under the “benefit of the bargain” contained in the original agreement among other factors, unless the case involves business fraud or some other aspect of unfair business practices.

Pro-Tip: “First of all, when you are in a lawsuit over a breach of contract or anything, you are investing money to get money. So if you don’t know how much you’re fighting for, how can you know how much you should spend?  Secondly, if you master the damages, if you can prove what the damages to you are, if you obtain and collect all the evidence about the damages, even before you worry about why you were damaged or what the law was breached, you can understand the case, the way a litigator understand understands it. You can help your lawyer and in the long run, you’ll be more successful in your case, by thinking about how you were damaged, the amount of those damages, and then working it way back to who breached what and who broke what law.

You need to be able to minimize the risk of the damages downstream, however, it’s even more complicated and deeper than that. You don’t have to decide that you are the person that breached because most people, their ego won’t let them do that. But if you’re being accused of breaching, again, the first thing you and your lawyer, or whoever should talk about or think about is how much and damages are they saying that I caused and how can I with very little expense limit those damages.

Let’s say someone says you owe $22,000 and you disagree. Well, you could pay them and then fight the case and get your money back. There’s there’s so many situations where looking at the damages can give you a great advantage, even when you’re on the defense side or the plaintiff side, because that’s what you’re fighting about.

What does it mean to mitigate the damages? Well, it’s an obligation under California law. A lot of people get hurt or damaged by someone who breaches a contract. And then they go with this attitude that, ‘well, since they breached, (the other party) owes,’ and they don’t try to mitigate their damages, or do things that would make them not suffer as much from the breach of contract or other types of causes of action. And what happens in the law is a judge or a jury will hear what you did (or didn’t do) and you’ll think you’re gonna get $300,000 in trial, but they’ll decide that you failed to perform your obligation, to do everything you could to lessen the amount of damages you suffered.  And you’ll get far less (if anything) for your otherwise valid claim.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

A thorough, well -documented chronology of events and and accurate assessment of the damages are the key to any business litigation, and the actions of the party who has been forced to endure the breach will be carefully scrutinized by the Court to ensure that they made reasonable and prudent efforts to mitigate or minimize the associated damages.

If you are involved in a breach of contract dispute you need an experienced and skilled San Diego breach of contract attorney from the Watkins Firm.  We invite you to review our podcast Episode 10 – The Importance of a Strong Corporate Attorney as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.  We will guide you in the steps required to mitigate breach of contract losses, and help you to resolve the dispute as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.