American Standard, Inc. v. Schectman New York Supreme Court 1981 1) Facts a) The Plaintiff, American Standard, Inc. (Plaintiff) and the Defendant, Schectman (Defendant), entered into a contract whereby the Plaintiff agreed to convey its buildings and equipment to Defendant. In return, the Defendant was to render payment and remove the equipment, demolish the structures and grade the land as specified. The Defendant failed to grade the property as agreed upon in the contract. The cost to complete the grading was estimated by the Plaintiff’s expert as $110,500. The Defendant argued that this amounted to a windfall and that the correct measure of damages ought to be the diminution in value of the property, resulting from his lack of performance. 2) History a) The lower court rendered a jury verdict for the Plaintiff, in the amount of $90,000, based on the cost of completing the grading. 3) Issue a) What is the proper measure of damages i) The court agrees that the defendant should done more for the contract ii) The lack of completing the house has resulted in economic waste, courts have measured the damages as the difference between value of property as constructed with proper completion iii) A contractor who would ask the court to apply the diminution of value measure “ as a instrument of justice” must not have breached the contract intentionally and must show substantial performance made in good faith iv) The defendant redoing the job would not have involved good faith but only doing what was promised and left undone. The damage remaining to replace the concrete was 90,000 and therefore could have been substantial performance or something trivial 4) Judgment: Affirmed