Quote: Stinky Turner "I think its relevant on the basis that you shouldn't underestimate a court's willingness to treat reasonably highly-paid sports stars somewhat differently to your average punter. Chris Caisley (a lawyer of all things) seriously misread the ability to enforce employment contracts with respect to I Harris. I'm not saying the issue is the same but Caisley obviously thought the court would see the 'deal' between Harris and Leeds as restraint of trade and ignore it. They didn't and it cost a lot more than Leeds would have settled for before the case went to court (not to mention costs).'"
It's not relevant at all. There is clearly no restraint of trade involved in a player agreeing to give first refusal to a club in the event he wants to return to SL in return for that club agreeing to release him to join an RU club. If that's what Caisley thought then it's no wonder the court didn't agree!
I'm not sure what you mean by a court's willingness to treat sports stars differently. The rules on damages aren't differently applied for sports stars than for other people.
In the event that there is a breach of contract and the innocent party doesn't suffer any loss they only get nominal damages (say £1 or £10).
If they suffer loss that is caused by the breach then they get compensated for that loss.
Clauses in contracts that try to allow a party to recover more than their real losses in the event of breach are usually struck down by the courts as being void penalty clauses. They have to be a reasonable pre-estimate of loss. The courts are not keen on people over-recovering on their losses, and the fact that the party in breach is say a premiership footballer doesn't mean the courts will turn a blind eye to a penalty clause.
I understand the desire for Wigan to get more compensation (it would be great if we could) but I've been saying all along that the club is in a weak position and the press reports seem now to bear out that IL is aware of this.
