TUTORIAL 10: DAMAGES AND SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

Instructions

Prepare Question 1 and 2. You only need to make a written submission for your answers
to Question 2. Your answers to Question 1 will be elicited through class discussion.

The first page of your answer should be a cover sheet containing and only containing the
following information:

(1) your name and student number;

(2) your tutor’s name; and
(3) your tutorial group number

Please include the word count in your answer. The word limit (excluding footnotes,
which will not be read) is 600 words.

The file name of your MS Word document should be: [family name][given name(s)],
G+[Group number], T+[Tutorial number].

Please submit your answer through Moodle by Sunday, 17 April, 10 a.m. Hong Kong
Time.

WARNING: Plagiarism is a serious form of academic misconduct and can be punished

by expulsion from the University.

Assignment Readings

S Worthington, ‘Common Law Values: The Role of Party Autonomy in Private Law’ in A.
Robertson and M. Tilbury (eds), The Common Law of Obligations: Divergence and
Unity (Hart Publishing, 2016)
Question 1
Please read Sarah Worthington, ‘Common Law Values: The Role of Party Autonomy in
Private Law’. Then answer the following questions.

a. According to Worthington, what does the value of party autonomy require?

b. How does Worthington reconcile “constraints within the law of contract” with
party autonomy as a core value of contract law?

c. Why, in Worthington’s view, is the common law’s hostility towards penalty

clauses dubious?

d. “When a party seeks to enforce a contract, it is enlisting the power of the state to
uphold a private bargain”. Does this proposition undermine Worthington’s conception
of party autonomy and if so, how should we understand the notion of party autonomy in
contract law?
Question 2

A panel of legal experts commissioned by the Hong Kong General Chamber of

Commerce has recommended allowing parties to a contract to stipulate for specific relief
in the event of breach. You have been asked by the government for your opinion on this
recommendation. What are the merits and demerits of the proposed rule? If it is to be
adopted, should the rule apply to all contracts or only some types of contracts?