Compensatory Damages

Damages in Contract Law can be confusing. It's worth memorizing the following:

The goal of compensatory damages is to put the non-breaching party into the position that party would have been in had the contract not been breached. By memorizing that line, it's just some simple math that'll guide you to the correct answer. X contracted to do some work for y and the contract called for x to be paid $1,000. Y breached and x found similar work for z at a price of $700. X now has $700 from z. If x were to collect $1,000 from y, x would have $1,700. That would put x in a better position than x would have been in if the contract hadn't been breached. Too much for x, so you don't want to choose that answer. If x collects $300 from y, x will have $700 from z, and 300 y. X will have $1,000, the exact amount x would have had had there been no breach. The math checks out and you're done at least for compensatory damages.