Where a party induced by misleading conduct to enter a contract has a contractual right to terminate but makes a reasonable decision to continue — particularly where the party has already incurred substantial expenditure and performed work under the contract — the causal connection between the misleading conduct and the loss is not severed. The Peter Turnbull dispensation principle, where one party's repudiatory conduct renders it pointless for the other to perform a condition precedent, dispenses only with the innocent party's obligation to take the step (here, proposing locations), not with the other party's substantive right (here, to approve or disapprove locations). A general denial in pleadings puts the plaintiff on notice to prove all elements of its case, and a defendant may raise on appeal a point going to the plaintiff's burden of proof even if not expressly taken at trial.
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