
Bernstein v. Nemeyer: The Restitution Option
Yale law professor Ian Ayres works through Bernstein v. Nemeyer as part of his American Contract Law course, originally recorded for Coursera. The case falls under remedies for breach by the buyer, and Ayres uses it to examine the restitution option available to a seller when a buyer walks away from a deal. He walks through the facts of the case and the court's reasoning, showing how restitution differs from other remedial measures like expectation or reliance damages. The lecture assumes some familiarity with the course's broader remedies unit but is focused tightly on this single case, making it a useful worked example of how courts calculate what a breaching buyer owes. Students following the Coursera course get supplementary case files linked in the description.