In Hawkins v. McGee (1929), the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that a doctor who guaranteed a specific result — a "one hundred percent perfect hand" — created an enforceable contract, and that the proper measure of damages was expectation damages: the difference between the value of the perfect hand the patient was promised and the value of the scarred, hairy hand he actually received. This is the case your professor almost certainly assigned for the first or second day of Contracts, and it's assigned for one reason: it strips away everything except the single question that defines the entire course — when someone breaks a promise, what does the law give the injured party? The answer, and Hawkins is where you first meet it, is the expectation interest.

Don't let the goofy facts fool you. "The hairy hand case" sounds like a joke, and it gets one in class every year, but the reason it survives on syllabi is that it isolates the remedies question with unusual cleanliness. Liability isn't really contested by the time you reach the damages discussion — the fight is over how to measure the loss. Master that measurement here and you're set up for the entire damages unit.

What is the Hawkins v. McGee case about?

Hawkins v. McGee, 84 N.H. 114, 146 A. 641 (1929), was decided by the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. George Hawkins had a scarred hand — burned by an electrical wire years earlier. Dr. Edward McGee, a surgeon, solicited the opportunity to perform a skin-graft operation and, to induce Hawkins to consent, promised a specific outcome. The operation failed. Hawkins sued, and the case reached the state's high court on the doctor's appeal, where the court addressed both whether an enforceable contract existed and — the part that matters for your outline — how damages should be measured. It is a contract case dressed up as a medical case, and treating it as anything else will get you tripped in the cold call.

What are the facts of Hawkins v. McGee?

George Hawkins, a young man, had a scar on the palm of his right hand from a burn he suffered as a child from contact with an electric wire. Dr. McGee had treated the family before and, according to Hawkins, repeatedly urged Hawkins's father to let him operate to remove the scar tissue via a skin graft. To close the deal, McGee said words to the effect of: "I will guarantee to make the hand a hundred per cent perfect hand" and told them the boy would be back to work in a few days. Hawkins agreed to the surgery.

The operation was a disaster. McGee grafted skin from Hawkins's chest onto his palm. The result was not a perfect hand — it was a hand that was worse than before, and because the graft came from the chest, the palm grew hair. Hence the name every 1L remembers: the hairy hand. The core legally significant facts are narrow: (1) there was a promise of a specific result, (2) that promise was made to induce consent, and (3) the result fell short.

What was the procedural history of Hawkins v. McGee?

Hawkins sued McGee for breach of contract (and originally in negligence, though the contract theory is what survives in the casebook). At trial, the jury returned a verdict for Hawkins. McGee moved to set the verdict aside, and the case turned on two issues the trial court handled imperfectly. First, McGee argued that his statements were mere expressions of opinion or reassurance — not a contractual promise. Second, and more importantly for you, the trial court had instructed the jury that damages should include the pain and suffering caused by the operation and the positive ill effects of the operation. McGee appealed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which reversed on the damages instruction and ordered a new trial (limited to damages).

What was the issue in Hawkins v. McGee?

There are two issues, and knowing both — and which one the case is actually famous for — is the difference between an A and a shrug in the cold call:

1. Formation issue: Was Dr. McGee's guarantee of a "one hundred percent perfect hand" an enforceable contractual promise, or merely a doctor's opinion, prediction, or reassurance (which would not be actionable in contract)?
2. Damages issue (the famous one): What is the correct measure of damages for breach of such a contract? Specifically, may the jury award damages for pain and suffering, or is the plaintiff limited to the difference between the promised result and the actual result?

What did Hawkins v. McGee hold, and what is the rule?

Holding on formation: The court held there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find that McGee's statements were a binding promise, not mere opinion. Because McGee solicited the operation and made the guarantee to induce Hawkins to consent, a jury could reasonably treat the language as a contractual warranty of result rather than a therapeutic reassurance.

Holding on damages (the rule for your outline): The trial court's damages instruction was wrong. The correct measure of contract damages is the expectation interest — the plaintiff should be put in the position he would have been in had the contract been performed. Applied here, that means:

Damages = (the value of a perfect hand as promised) − (the value of the hand Hawkins actually received after surgery), plus any incidental harms the operation caused.

Crucially, the court held that pain and suffering from the operation is NOT part of the recovery — Hawkins would have endured pain from the surgery even if it had succeeded, so that pain is not a loss caused by the breach. The court also rejected using the pre-operation hand as the baseline; the promise was a perfect hand, so the perfect hand is the measuring stick.

What was the court's reasoning in Hawkins v. McGee?

The reasoning is the whole point, so slow down here. On formation, the court reasoned that context transforms language. "You'll be fine" from a doctor is reassurance; "I guarantee a hundred percent perfect hand" said to close a sale for an operation the doctor sought out can be a promise. The commercial, solicitation-driven posture is what let the court treat medical talk as contract language.

On damages — the passage every casebook prints — the court grounded the measure in the purpose of contract remedies. Contract law protects the plaintiff's expectation. The defendant made a promise; the law's job is to give the plaintiff the benefit of that bargain, the value he was promised. So you start with what was promised (a perfect hand) and subtract what was delivered (the hairy, scarred hand). That gap is the loss the breach caused.

The court's rejection of pain and suffering follows directly from this logic. Hawkins bargained for an operation. The operation was always going to involve pain, healing, and incapacity — those costs were part of the deal Hawkins accepted. He can't recover for costs he agreed to bear. He can only recover for the shortfall between the promised result and the actual result, plus any additional harm the botched operation inflicted beyond a normal recovery. This is the expectation measure doing its work: it neither over-compensates (no windfall for costs Hawkins accepted) nor under-compensates (he gets the full value of the bargain).

This is also your first encounter with the contrast that runs through the whole remedies unit: expectation (position if performed) versus reliance (position if the contract had never been made). Under a reliance measure, you'd compare the hand to its pre-operation condition. The court explicitly did not do that — it used the perfect hand, the expectation baseline. Note this contrast; professors love to test whether you can tell expectation and reliance apart, and Hawkins is the cleanest illustration in the course.

Why does Hawkins v. McGee matter?

Hawkins is the doctrinal anchor for the expectation interest — the default remedy in American contract law and the concept that structures the entire remedies portion of your course. Everything downstream (Hadley v. Baxendale on foreseeability, the doctrine of mitigation, the reliance and restitution alternatives, cost-of-completion versus diminution-in-value cases like Jacob & Youngs v. Kent and Peevyhouse) builds on the premise Hawkins establishes: the goal is to give the promisee the benefit of the bargain, measured in money.

It sits at the very front of the course precisely because it's a formation-and-remedy case with almost no clutter. And it has cultural weight: it's the first case Professor Kingsfield grills students on in The Paper Chase. Your professor knows you likely know the surface facts, which is exactly why the cold call will push past them.

Cold-call prep: the questions you'll actually get on Hawkins

The hairy-hand jokes are the setup. Here's what your professor is really going to ask, and how to answer without flinching.

• "What did Hawkins bargain for?" — A perfect hand. Say it in those exact terms, because the answer to the damages question flows entirely from the promised result. If you frame it as "a better hand" or "treatment," you've already lost the thread.
• "Why isn't Hawkins entitled to damages for pain and suffering?" — Because the pain of the operation was a cost he agreed to bear as part of the deal; even a successful operation would have hurt. Expectation damages compensate only for the shortfall the breach caused, not for costs the plaintiff accepted.
• "What's the measure of damages? Write it as a formula." — Value of perfect hand as promised, minus value of the hand Hawkins actually received, plus incidental harms. Be ready to put it on the board.
• "Why is the baseline the perfect hand and not the hand he had before surgery?" — Because contract law protects expectation, not reliance. The promise was a perfect hand, so the perfect hand is the measuring stick. Using the pre-operation hand would be a reliance measure, which this court rejected.
• "Was McGee's statement a promise or just an opinion? How do you tell?" — Context. He solicited the operation and guaranteed the result to induce consent — that commercial framing lets a jury treat it as a warranty rather than a doctor's prediction. Point to the solicitation and the word 'guarantee.'
• The trap follow-up: "Isn't a doctor's promise about the human body always just an opinion?" — Not necessarily. The court declined to adopt a per se rule; whether it's a promise is a fact question turning on the words and circumstances. This is where you show you understand the formation holding is narrow and fact-bound.

How Hawkins v. McGee shows up on the exam

You will rarely see "the hairy hand" itself on an exam — but you will constantly see the rule it stands for. The classic issue-spotter move: a defendant promises a specific result (a contractor promises a house worth X, a supplier promises goods of a certain quality), delivers something worth less, and the exam asks you to compute damages. Your job is to identify the promised value, subtract the delivered value, and add incidentals — the Hawkins formula.

The trap students fall into: awarding the plaintiff's costs or pain or the money they spent, when the question calls for the expectation measure. Whenever an exam hands you a broken promise, your first instinct should be: "What position would performance have put the plaintiff in?" — not "What did the plaintiff lose out of pocket?" Those two questions have different answers, and Hawkins is the case that teaches you to reach for expectation first. The second trap is mixing up expectation and reliance baselines; if you can articulate why the court used the perfect hand and not the pre-surgery hand, you'll dodge the most common damages error in the whole course.

Related cases taught alongside Hawkins v. McGee

• Hadley v. Baxendale — limits expectation damages to foreseeable/consequential losses; the natural next step after Hawkins establishes the expectation baseline.
• Jacob & Youngs v. Kent — the cost-of-completion versus diminution-in-value debate (Reading pipe); a refinement of how you value the shortfall.
• Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co. — same cost-versus-value tension, opposite intuition; a favorite exam contrast.
• Sullivan v. O'Connor — another doctor-warranty case (a nose job), explicitly discussing expectation versus reliance recovery; often paired with Hawkins directly.
• Groves v. John Wunder Co. — cost of performance versus diminution in value on land; part of the same damages cluster.