Sunday, March 7, 2021

U.S. Supreme Court, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, Docket No. 19–968, J. Thomas

 

Nominal Damages v. Actual, Compensatory or Statutory Damages

 

Article III Standing

 

Common Law

 

 

 

To establish Article III standing, the Constitution requires a plaintiff to identify an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and to seek a remedy likely to redress that injury. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 338.

 

 

We granted certiorari to consider whether a plaintiff who sues over a completed injury and establishes the first two elements of standing (injury and traceability) can establish the third by requesting only nominal damages.

 

 

The dispute here concerns whether the remedy Uzuegbunam sought—nominal damages—can redress the completed constitutional violation that he alleges occurred when campus officials enforced the speech policies against him. The Court looks to the forms of relief awarded at common law to determine whether nominal damages can redress a past injury. The prevailing rule at common law was that a party whose rights are invaded can always recover nominal damages without furnishing evidence of actual damage. By permitting plaintiffs to pursue nominal damages whenever they suffered a personal legal injury, the common law avoided the oddity of privileging small economic rights over important, but not easily quantifiable, nonpecuniary rights.

 

 

The common law did not require a plea for compensatory damages as a prerequisite to an award of nominal damages. Nominal damages are not purely symbolic. They are instead the damages awarded by default until the plaintiff establishes entitlement to some other form of damages. A single dollar often will not provide full redress, but the partial remedy satisfies the redressability requirement.

 

 

(…) An award of nominal damages constitutes relief on the merits.

 

 

A request for redress in the form of nominal damages does not guarantee entry to court. In addition to redressability, the plaintiff must establish the other elements of standing and satisfy all other relevant requirements, such as pleading a cognizable cause of action. Uzuegbunam experienced a completed violation of his constitutional rights when respondents enforced their speech policies against him. Nominal damages can redress Uzuegbunam’s injury even if he cannot or chooses not to quantify that harm in economic terms.

 

 

(…) The parties here agree that courts at common law routinely awarded nominal damages. They, instead, dispute what kinds of harms those damages could redress.

 

 

(…) Dissenting, Lord Holt argued that the common law inferred damages whenever a legal right was violated. Observing that the law recognized “not merely pecuniary” injury but also “personal injury,” Lord Holt stated that “every injury imports a damage” and that a plaintiff could always obtain damages even if he “does not lose a penny by reason of the violation.” Id., at 955, 92 Eng. Rep., at 137. Although Lord Holt was in the minority, the House of Lords overturned the majority decision, thus validating Lord Holt’s position, 3 Salk.17, 91 Eng. Rep. 665 (K. B. 1703), and this principle “laid down . . . by Lord Holt” was followed “in many subsequent cases,” Embrey v. Owen, 6 Exch. 353, 368, 155 Eng. Rep. 579, 585 (1851).

 

 

The dissent correctly notes that English courts differed in some respects from courts under our system, but Lord Holt’s position also prevailed in courts on this side of the Atlantic. Applying what he called Lord Holt’s “incontrovertible” reasoning, Justice Story explained that a prevailing plaintiff “is entitled to a verdict for nominal damages” whenever “no other kind of damages be proved.” Webb v. Portland Mfg. Co., 29 F. Cas. 506, 508–509 (No. 17,322) (CC Me. 1838). Because the common law recognized that “every violation imports damage,” Justice Story reasoned that “the law tolerates no farther inquiry than whether there has been the violation of a right.” Ibid. Justice Story also made clear that this logic applied to both retrospective and prospective relief. Id., at 507 (stating that nominal damages are available “wherever there is a wrong” and that, “a fortiori, this doctrine applies where there is not only a violation of a right of the plaintiff, but the act of the defendant, if continued, may become the foundation, by lapse of time, of an adverse right”).

 

 

Respondents and the dissent thus get the relationship between nominal damages and compensatory damages backwards. Nominal damages are not a consolation prize for the plaintiff who pleads, but fails to prove, compensatory damages. They are instead the damages awarded by default until the plaintiff establishes entitlement to some other form of damages, such as compensatory or statutory damages.

 

 

(…) A plaintiff must maintain a personal interest in the dispute at every stage of litigation, including when judgment is entered, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992), and must do so “separately for each form of relief sought,” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 185 (2000).

 

 

Because nominal damages were available at common law in analogous circumstances, we conclude that a request for nominal damages satisfies the redressability element of standing where a plaintiff’s claim is based on a completed violation of a legal right.

 

 

 

Secondary sources: D. Laycock & R. Hasen, Modern American Remedies 636 (5th ed. 2019).

 

 

 

(U.S. Supreme Court, March 8, 2021, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, Docket No. 19–968, J. Thomas)

 

 

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