미국법상 신뢰이익 배상에 관한 연구- Fuller/Purdue의 신뢰이익 배상론을 중심으로 -

This paper revisits Fuller and Perdue’s theory of reliance damages, which sought to clarify the purpose of contract law by categorizing the types of interests it protects—expectation, reliance, and restitution. Despite longstanding criticism, their framework continues to offer an insightful analytical tool for understanding the objectives of contract remedies. Building on this foundation, the paper examines how the concept of reliance interest has evolved within Korean contract law, particularly through the judicial recognition of reimbursement for expenditures in cases of non-performance. Tracing the development of Supreme Court jurisprudence—from the 1962 decision that denied recovery of reliance expenditures to the 1992 and 2002 decisions that explicitly acknowledged them—the paper argues that reliance damages have now become a firmly established doctrine in Korean law. Nevertheless, certain theoretical and doctrinal issues remain unresolved, including (a) whether such expenditures constitute losses “caused by” non-performance, (b) whether they should be categorized as reliance or expectation damages, (c ) whether they should be capped by the amount of the expectation interest, and (d) whether both may be claimed concurrently. Drawing on Fuller and Perdue’s analytical framework, the study argues that expenditures made in reliance on performance can properly be regarded as compensable losses, they are better understood as reliance interest rather than expectation interest, and the restriction of recovery to the amount of the expectation interest should not apply uniformly, especially in cases involving “incidental reliance.” The paper concludes by emphasizing that recognizing reliance damages as an independent remedial option serves to enhance the coherence and flexibility of Korean contract law, aligning it with both fairness-based and efficiency-based rationales in modern contract theory.