Mr. Dealer bought a fleet of SUVs (sport utility vehicles) from General Motors (GM) on credit, GM agreeing not to assign the resulting account receivable without Dealer's consent. GM later, without debtor dealer's consent, assigned the account to The Bank of New York (BNY) for consideration. Dealer made payments to BNY, but claimed damages from GM for breach of contract. 1. Could Dealer collect damages from GM

Yes, Dealer could collect damages from GM because basically GM breached the contract. Any time a contract is breached, the non-breaching party can sue. But the real question here is what amount could the court assign to Dealer as compensation for damages incurred. If you want to rephrase this question, it would be: What damages did Dealer suffer due to GM's breach.

If the damages are not significant, then the court will probably assign some amount for nominal damages. To be honest, the greatest expenses here are actually the legal costs of the lawsuit. Unless Dealer can prove that assigning the contract actually hurt them (which I doubt), then the court will assign a small amount. Sometimes nominal damages can be very small and mostly symbolic, e.g. $1.