That's part of what that UT economic study said. I don't deny that it would turn efficient decisions into inefficient ones once all the legal system costs are rolled in. But this can lead to new avenues of discussion.betasteve wrote: Since we are and always will be an adversarial system, I see this as a major flaw. I mean now we are looking at fact-intensive discovery into reliance and possibly additional litigation as to whether reliance may have been in bad faith. Sorry here, bro, but the systemic costs outweigh the minuscule benefits.
What about a special arbitration group for major corporations? Companies would be able to submit their private/confidential expenses and the "clearinghouse" arbitration group would come to a decision about what the appropriate reliance damages would be.
Even without going down that road, there are times when reliance is much easier to calculate than expectation. That's supposed to be the norm actually. Combine that with the fact that "fairness/equity/intent of the parties" seems to indicate that reliance was the parties' preference for compensation upon breach and you start seeing a significant area of the law that is in need of reform.