MATERIAL VS. NON-MATERIAL

A material breach of contract, sometimes called a “total breach,” is the failure of one party to adhere to the fundamental purpose of the contract in such a way that the purpose is “irreparably broken.” A non-material breach is when one party breaks a minor element of the contract.

Here is a simplified example of what a material vs. non-material breach might look like:

You hire an electrician to specifically install new, high-grade wiring in your home for the purpose of protecting your home from electrical failures and damages. To save money, the electrician instead installs lower-quality wiring which does not work as well and ends up causing damage to your home. In this case, the breach may be considered material because the installation contract was for a specific high-quality wiring to protect your home, and the contractor failed in that goal.

However, if you hire an electrician to rewire your home and ask for purple wiring, but he instead uses blue wiring that performs just as well as the purple and is not visible because it’s inside the walls. While this could still be considered a breach, it would be a non-material one because the outcome of the contract is not altered — you have new wiring that works as you wanted it too.

If you’ve suffered damages from a breach of contract, whether material or not, you can still pursue legal action against the other party.