I”m just a first year law student, so, i’m kind of talking out of my ass, here,

but, we basically have 2 major areas of civil law : Contracts and Tort.

In Contract 2 people make an agreement over time for value exchange.
Contracts can be very broad, as long as they don’t violate public policy.
(I.E. No contract for slavery, prostitution, child sales, organ sales,,,)

however

Tort law is the stuff of harms. It’s a different type of harm where your rights or
person are harmed and settled with monetary damages.

Now the general rule is that in all torts, there is a contract action and in all contract actions, there is a tort. Not 100% but you look for them.

so here’s the deal.

if the contract had a material mistrepesentation, that’s fraud, so you can
breach the entire contract, it’s null and void on it’s face, and the damage limits won’t matter.

now in tort, you would maintain your rights, so

if the contract was for say a warehouse, and the warehouse roof was bad, and the goods you kept in there were damaged, you could be limited to $500 in damages.

if the roof fell in and hurt you, you would likely have a claim for negligence
even though the lease limits your “Contract” damages, you would likely
maintain your “Tort” injuries.

Now it’s a different legal standard.

Tort is about preponderance of evidence and breach of duty, while contract
ties to the reading of the letter of the agreement.

so, if i haven’t confused you then i’ve enlightened you