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Damages are the money paid or awarded to a claimant in a civil action.
Damages may also refer to:
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.
Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.
A tort, in common law jurisdiction, is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. It can include intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, financial losses, injuries, invasion of privacy, and many other things. The word 'tort' stems from Old French via the Norman Conquest and Latin via the Roman Empire.
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages award.
Quantum meruit is a Latin phrase meaning "what one has earned". In the context of contract law, it means something along the lines of "reasonable value of services".
The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to give up his gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to pay the claimant for their loss.
A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will in order to compensate for the harm of a wrongful act inflicted upon an individual.
A civil penalty or civil fine is a financial penalty imposed by a government agency as restitution for wrongdoing. The wrongdoing is typically defined by a codification of legislation, regulations, and decrees. The civil fine is not considered to be a criminal punishment, because it is primarily sought in order to compensate the state for harm done to it, rather than to punish the wrongful conduct. As such, a civil penalty, in itself, will not carry jail time or other legal penalties. For example, if a person were to dump toxic waste in a state park, the state would have the same right to seek to recover the cost of cleaning up the mess as would a private landowner, and to bring the complaint to a court of law, if necessary.
In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negligence.
Where two or more persons are liable in respect of the same liability, in most common law legal systems they may either be:
Liquidated damages, also referred to as "liquidated and ascertained damages" (LADs), are damages whose amount the parties designate during the formation of a contract for the injured party to collect as compensation upon a specific breach. This is most applicable where the damages are intangible, such as a failure by the contractor on a public project to fulfill minority business subcontracting quotas.
Damages for breach of contract is a common law remedy, available as of right. It is designed to compensate the victim for their actual loss as a result of the wrongdoer’s breach rather than to punish the wrongdoer. If no loss has been occasioned by the plaintiff, only nominal damages will be awarded.
Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney for a client, in or out of court. It may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that when lawyers charge a flat-fee rather than billing by the hour, they work less hard on behalf of clients and clients get worse outcomes. Attorney fees are separate from fines, compensatory and punitive damages, and from court costs in a legal case. Under the "American rule", attorney fees are usually not paid by the losing party to the winning party in a case, except pursuant to specific statutory or contractual rights.
Penal damages are liquidated damages which exceed reasonable compensatory damages, making them invalid under common law. While liquidated damage clauses set a pre-agreed value on the expected loss to one party if the other party were to breach the contract, penal damages go further and seek to penalise the breaching party beyond the reasonable losses from the breach. Many clauses which are found to be penal are expressed as liquidated damages clauses but have been seen by courts as excessive and thus invalid.
An adequate remedy or adequate remedy at law is part of a legal remedy which the court deems satisfactory, without recourse to an equitable remedy. This consideration expresses to the court whether money should be awarded or a court order should be decreed.. Adequate remedy at law refers to the sufficient compensation for the loss or damages caused by the defendant with a proper monetary award. The court must grant the adequacy of remedy that will lead to a "meaningful hearing". Whether legal damages or equitable relief are requested depends largely on,whether or not the remedy can be valued. Both two elements, compensation and the meaningfulness of hearing, provide a proper way to have an adequate remedy. The word "meaningfulness" of hearing in the law process is the assumption that the defendant compensated must be meaningful for the injured party where the defendant made a fully covered compensation for all the losses. Hence, the hearing in which cannot give any right amount of compensation award or settlement is not "meaningful", and the unavailability of the compensation will lead to an inadequate remedy. The adequate remedy at law is the legal remedies by meaning it is satisfactory compensation by way of monetary damages without granting equitable remedies.
A contract is a legally binding agreement that defines and governs the rights and duties between or among its parties. A contract is legally enforceable when it meets the requirements of applicable law. A contract typically involves the exchange of goods, services, money, or a promise of any of those. In the event of a breach of contract, the injured party may seek judicial remedies such as damages or cancellation.
Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd [1909] AC 488 is an old English contract law and UK labour law case, which used to restrict damages for non-pecuniary losses for breach of contract.
The Virginia Circuit Courts are the state trial courts of general jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Circuit Courts have jurisdiction to hear civil and criminal cases. For civil cases, the courts have authority to try cases with an amount in controversy of more than $4,500 and have exclusive original jurisdiction over claims for more than $25,000. In criminal matters, the Circuit Courts are the trial courts for all felony charges and for misdemeanors originally charged there. The Circuit Courts also have appellate jurisdiction for any case from the Virginia General District Courts claiming more than $50, which are tried de novo in the Circuit Courts.
Civil law is a major branch of the law. In common law legal systems such as England and Wales and the United States, the term refers to non-criminal law. The law relating to civil wrongs and quasi-contracts is part of the civil law, as is law of property. Civil law may, like criminal law, be divided into substantive law and procedural law. The rights and duties of persons amongst themselves is the primary concern of civil law.