I doubt that they have to prove what the results would have been

There's a legalprinciples known as damages for "loss of a chance" The classic case is a beauty contest. Wrongly a girl was deprived of the opportunity to compete, and she sued. It was argued that she could not prove that she would have won a prize. The Court said it didn't matter and awarded her something like 10% of the prize money on the basis that she had a one in ten chance of winning, as one of ten contestants.

This principle is applied all the time. Where the loss depends upon the hypothetical outcome of the actions of a third party, the Courts will assess the chances of what would have happened and award damages which reflect the value of the lost chance. As long as you have lost a "real or substantial" chance, not merely a fanciful or speculative one, then you will get damages.

So the Blades have presumably been arguing that they lost a real or substantial chance of staying up, rather than that they can prove for sure that they would have. And I would have thought that they are obviously right about that.

Posted By: Old Git on September 26th 2008 at 16:28:39

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