No damages can be recovered for a breach of contract which are not clearly ascertainable in both their nature and origin.
Cal. Civ. Code § 3301
Damages for Breach of Contract [[3300.] - 3322.]
Applied in 44 court decisions — leading case 21 Cal. 4th 543 - Erlich v. Menezes (1999)
Most recently applied in Bridgestone Ams. Tire Operations, L.L.C. v. Harris (January 2020)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.