Opinion ID: 801410
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: White’s Damages

Text: State Farm contends that no claim for breach of the agreement can support damages resulting from White’s not receiving a new contract, because the agreement unequivocally disclaims any obligation for State Farm to offer him a new agreement. There is evidence, however, that White’s compensation as an agent depended in part on the volume of his agency’s sales. He may have suffered recoverable losses to the extent that his performance was impaired by State Farm’s failure to support him as promised. Also, if White can prove that State Farm would have elected to renew their agreement but for its bad-faith breach of the support provisions, then the measure of his recovery will be “all the damages, foreseeable or not, that are a direct consequence of his failure to perform.” LA. CIV. CODE art. 1997. The parties did not raise in the district court or on appeal what effect State Farm’s freedom to deny renewal would have in light of that expansive measure of damages. They also have not raised the extent of whatever additional compensation White might have otherwise earned during his year as an agent. Indeed, no challenge to the merits of White’s contractual claim was properly raised before the district court. State Farm’s summary judgment motion did not address that claim, and White received no notice that the district court might address its merits in disposing of State Farm’s motion. See FED. R. CIV. P. 56(f). We therefore leave all issues regarding the merits of the breach-ofcontract claim for consideration in the first instance on remand.