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This case study uses the example of a football coach to show how civil law can play a major part in someone's life and career.

Dennis's contract. The club is in breach of contract with Dennis. In that respect, it does not matter that, for example, it is no fault of the club's that the club is in economic difficulty and everyone agrees (even perhaps Dennis) that it must shed staff. In theory, Dennis could insist on seeing out his contract, but in practice the club can treat the contract as at an end and pay damages instead to compensate Dennis for the two years' pay that he would have had at the club had his contract been fulfilled.

The newspaper article. Defamation is committed when someone's reputation is wrongly lowered in the eyes of 'right-thinking people' by something said (say, in an article, interview or book) other than through a hasty 'off-the-cuff' insult or the like. Most importantly, if a statement says something false that damages another's reputation, it does not matter that the statement was made in all innocence. That is why journalists have to be careful to check the reliability of their sources. It will be no defence that they reasonably thought a defamatory statement was in fact true, if it was in fact false.

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