Exemption clauses are terms inserted into the contract, whereby the party seeking to rely upon them tries to escape liability for the consequences of his breach, which arises in the course of performing the contract. Initially, when the contract is being entered into, a number of terms are embodied in the agreement. In fact, in recent years, the majority of transactions tend to be concluded between the individual on one side and a large company or business organization on the other. As a result, many contracts today tend to be in a standard form, drawn up by these large business organizations, and it is a question of take it or leave it on the individual's part. These standard form contracts may have a number of exemption clauses incorporated into them, often in small print, which serve to protect the large business organizations from successful suit on the part of the other party to the contract when things go wrong. Hire purchase companies are particularly ardent users of exemption clauses in their agreements, so that if they happen to deliver to the hirer a motorcar in a state of dilapidation, the hirer will have no remedy whatever, and will have no choice other than to pay up the installments due under the hire-purchase agreement and most likely pay for any repairs to the car himself.In recent years the courts have been more ready to come to the assistance of such unfortunate persons, by the application of the doctrine of fundamental breach to these exemptions clauses. The courts have established that in the common law of contract, when a fundamental breach occurs as a result of the fault of a party to the contract, that party cannot normally rely on an exemption clause inserted for his benefit, in order to escape liability for his fault. However, there is some controversy as to the legal principle on which this doctrine rests. The decisions of the English Court of Appeal, which are examined later, seem to suggest that in the opinion of that court, the doctrine rests entirely on a substantive rule of the common law that whenever any fundamental breach occurs, as a matter of substantive law, no exemption clause can ever apply.This Article presents extensive review as to why The House of Lords has not accepted this view as an analysis of their recent decision in the Suisse Atlantique case will show. In this Article, readers will understand why The House of Lords have not accepted this view because, it is submitted, that if one accepts that the doctrine rests on a substantive rule of the common law, this is equivalent to saying either that: it is no longer true to say that the common law of contract is founded on the doctrine of freedom of contract; or, if freedom of contract remains true of the common law, then the doctrine of fundamental breach must be of some antiquity and founded perhaps on some doctrine such as public policy. If the doctrine is recent, then presumably fundamental breach represents an extension of the doctrine of public policy.