In Fera v. Village Plaza396 Mich. 639, 242 N.W.2d 372 (Mich. 1976), the landlord signed a lease with Fera for a
bookstore, and then breached.Fera
has damages from loss of business, but how to calculate such loss, since the
business never opened?The Court
found that it is not necessary to show what the damages are "with
certainty", but only that the plaintiff, "lay the basis for a reasonable
estimate of the extent of the harm measured in money."It is impossible to know how much money
Fera would have made, but it is possible to get a good estimate based on
profits from similar businesses and other economic data.