joseph bradford from sharing their faith the official cause concrete injury she can joseph lost forever the chance to get those days back and speak their message to their peers no policy change can ever restore that lost opportunity and it's this court said and carry the chair and for our the appropriate remedy to redress those past harms is nominal damages nominal damages awarded to satisfy article three for our explains that nominal damages provide relief when the marriage vindicate the plaintiff through an enforceable judgement and modify the defendant's behavior for the plaintiff spent if it by forcing the defendant to pay the plaintiff money the classic article three dollars remedy for dollars or one hundred dollar award satisfies article three because it puts money in a plaintiff pocket no matter how it is labeled compensatory statutory liquidated or nominal  of outlier rule is a radical departure for centuries english in american courts have awarded nominal damages when no future threat exists even after a plaintiff wastes compensatory damages every circuit to address the issues does the same even the th and tell us recent decision this court should retain the longstanding rule it is not resulted in the go out of cases and the alternative makes a mess of this court's clear article three jur prudence nominal damages provide a remedy and many context dressing injuries that transcend price tags from out of constitutional searches and seizures to free exercise and due process violations to censorship and compulsion of speech these constitutional rights are invaluable even when they don't result unquantifiable harm yet the officials urge you to treat them as worthless this court should declined that invitation and reverse and forward here question  counsel i want to understand the scope of your argument st say you go into court and say your rights have been violated the judge asks on how the human damage by that does you have any compensable injury you say no then the judge posts a yell everything's fine now doesn't that doesn't then make a mockery of our article three requirements now your article three requirements for a fiery crash and of course define that as a personal tangible benefit  dollars nineteen cents of the respondents brief they go through all the authorities that say that it's not that that dollar is a small amount of compensatory damages and is in name only it is not damages at all that's not what this court cases if that are the common law and that the significance of redressing the right the fact that a past injury has occurred money changes hands as this court cited for it modifies the defendant's behavior in a way that benefits the plaintiff and providing money damages of any amount is significant and that it provides a great dress for the parties and of course among judgment th stronger than the flanagan's ruling and i think that is a basis of distinction although even flanagan's departs sharply from the majority of circuit in terms of this case this case there is a past show with joseph bradford's injury and certainly requirement i don't think so the congress has held that under section one hundred and eighty three the vindication of civil rights is so significant that it did away with the amount in controversy and this court has held that vindicating constitutional right that the highest importance and that it is an injury in of itself to have the government engage in misconduct and not redress that injury no matter how insignificant the damage award might be the one new set of words is unconstitutional for we're not supposed to give advisory opinion but if somebody comes in on the concourse of conduct under the statute or not bruce how radford is her who wouldn't be that is give me an example of a case where he says this is unconstitutional they think it could be applied to me i think  it's i think it is unconstitutional and i'm hurt because i'm a schoolteacher and those sorts of situations in the school which are unconstitutional or they're not going to be done anymore which this case is on the general allegations are sufficient to establish the facts in the case although in a later stage a summary judgment could be could be considered by the court by joseph had a specific intent here and c why he had a specific intent to engage in in the speech and to share his faith on the campus he was made aware of how that how the school threatened she came with discipline and his speech was challenged because he didn't want to receive expulsion or suspension or some other form of discipline by engaging in the conversation justice alito you have said that a nominal damages serves to indicate  for a real concrete violation can be easily monetized so if a person is told you cannot speak about a certain subject and that's a violation of  constitutional right there may not be any way to monetize the buyer of the harm that is awarded to the person but it is the theory that nominal damages set nominal damages vindicate the constitutional violations by entering the judgment by requiring the payment when other damages are not quantifiable it's similar to statutory or liquidated damages where there isn't that theory and i responded to say that they fall roughly into two categories cases where nominal damages service prospective relief from ongoing or future harm so in cases where they were merely a consolation prize for argument by the government directly do you think that's possible and if it's not why not i believe it is your question related to whether entry of judgment would be on the merits well that's the question is no if how about if the defendant deposits a dollar and accounts payable to your client and the district court enters judgment on that basis which your claims and the move that was what the government was arguing require that tender to be more than the compensable damage of one dollar which will require an admission of liability as well as what in our case will would require that seems to be in the judge's discretion and either party i think what have a right to insist on a disclaimer of an admission of liability but that would be up to the just of course discretion but i do think that a this court should have briefing amendment that may well be i think his injury was that his speech was chosen he would satisfy this court's past an s b a list but that isn't the issue that this court would need to decide today i think that proves the point that injury in form of compensatory damages for a nation and something else no they're not a form of compensatory damages although i don't think that undermines the argument i think that they are compensation in the sense that they are providing money to reflect the fact that damage has been done but the amount of money it pales in comparison to the harm it's not that the dollar means so little is that the violation means so much that's why we avoid the damages in those result unquantifiable harm the value of free speech or the loss of procedural due process is nearly impossible to measure as this court has held and there are many reasons why plaintiff may not want to assert compensatory damages and those are very valid committed a wrong what is compensatory and that it's requiring a defendant to play it to pay a plaintiff money and that's currency she gave can go out and buy a package of tracks for one hundred and ten dollars or twenty dollars certainly in that sense it is but i think the overall purpose is that because we can't measure how harmful violation of speech is or how harmful and unreasonable search and seizure is we want to ensure that some redress is provided in that to the plaintiff for the past urging plaintiffs and their counsel to make up damages that they neither want nor need nor think they should qualify for when the government's rationale for changing this rule is that they believe it would be too costly when really it will lead to  unreasonable search and seizure cases for example i'm not going to announce justice for i recognize the hudson but those are all nominal damages cases because it's so difficult to prove a one off  shakeups in the nd circuit opinion the motto and judge henry in the th circuit opinion in utah animal rights there are several opinions both suggested as the government does here that there's not much at stake because a defendant can always or asked for this but i didn't want to probe deeper on the answer isn't that exactly right lower level have applied the justice o'connor factors to look at various aspects of the case what was that for in the significance of the issue that was decided just to spare or counsel i want to go back to justice kagan's question when she asked you if nominal damages were a form of compensatory damages you said no and i mean i understand that they are not compensatory damages you know they they are distinct categories and you can't prove them with specificity can't prove nominal damages i mean but i would have thought that your argument depended on nominal damages being retrospective i took your argument to be that they were compensation for and hard to quantify or impossible to quantify harm so can you about bradford's claim and asking why that wouldn't be moot can you identify any situation in which a case would be moot if the plaintiff also sought nominal damages putting aside bradford's particular one in terms of the courts being flooded this court in terms of a true concern about being course being flooded with frivolous claims for relief protracted litigation or avoiding a drain on government resources the long standing role is the role that affects resolve those concerns injury in fact ensures that cases and controversies involving concrete harms and they're not made up there's scarcely and they're not made of claims there's no one that can test the injury in this case and the doesn't even allow for compensation in those situations not at all damages is the only resolution and it fosters a quicker and fair resolution because the government can't roll the dice and then say never mind at the end of the case when the when the odds which that past injury a tangible award of money that the amount of money is nominal immaterial to whether an article three case or controversy this recognizing that the deprivation of a personal right is generally not harmless common law courts have long awarded nominal damages as partial redress and congress incorporated that practice infection might in any three respondents position would not just break from history and tradition but create confusion in the law like nominal damages many other forms of monetary relief  not tied to either evidence of quantifiable harm or likelihood of future violations such as punitive treble and statutory damages this court should reaffirm that such monetary relief for that injury it is proper article three counsel it seems to me that one of the difficulties with your case is that it melds the inquiries into standing in the merits we have always been adamant about the necessity of addressing standing or the on the flip side of it responding to moving his concerns before reaching the merits but if you have or you have a case where there's no compensable damages there's no concern about future  injury no no repetition and all that that's on the books assume nominal damages as you know in name only is a ruling on the merits then the standing inquiry and the are precisely the same why is that not right i don't think that's right for the reason this court even spokeo the question if the st standing is whether there is an injury in fact now in this case that's quite easy because said having your speech suppressed or being subject to a threat of suppression of speech is a perfect match no no no that's exactly my point that is the simply the court saying that you're right you know you do media we discuss the merits having your speech suppressed is an injury what we always do is look for standing st ok you say something bad has happened to you how have you been injured what gives you the right to come into federal court i don't think you can answer your injury question without something separate from prevailing on the merits i don't think that is consistent with the common law your honor which article three is derived from a for example travis merely breaking the code someone's property setting one  nominal damages i think it would turn out whether there was a credible threat of enforcement of this court has recognized that there's an injury in fact when there's a credible threat of enforcement to the answerable to your question and justice briar's question from earlier if you think of a case two offices two haitian one black acre i own black acre and you come in and have to make all the time now you won't do it anymore so i bring a lawsuit for trust i can't measure the damages and nominal damages oh we have then given their opposite situation what we have are four hundred million laws actions policies and let's take the subset where we don't know whether it violates the constitution or not we don't know border case in those circumstances if you bring the courts into every single case they will spend an awful lot of time a cases so nobody is really hurt when there are lots of people who are really hurt who need their time and effort ok so we have to draw a line and the th circuit for line not perfect but is allow it if you will also could plead a claim for compensatory damages which i think they did here i don't know why they but he said that but nonetheless that's their line now if you don't like that line you tell me what the better bring a claim for compensatory damages just very hard to prove but you never dated as opposed to use of as just a story explained in his web decision and you don't need to bring a nominal compensatory damages to to bring a and it doesn't matter how complicated the property law question posed by the trespass to it are the the alleged violation of property rights was enough to lead you into court and bring a nominal damages to the end of the flip side of your concern constitutional question is not as an end in themselves but as a means to resolving a controversy between the parties so the plaintiff says he's entitled to a dollar and the defendant says great i'm willing to pay a dollar that's the end of the case  a list and the virginia bookseller's he clearly faced a credible threat of in force meant given that the policy was actively in force against others at the time and he knew it as a result he he killed his own speech but that's not self censorship in the way of clapper because there was a credible threat of enforcement so that is a concrete harm that's barely traceable to the government's policy it would be a different situation if the government didn't have a policy or the government didn't force their policy then his failure to speak would be attributable to his own actions but in a case where the government had a policy that they were robustly actively enforcing at the time his self censorship is attributable to their conduct and that's why he has say i might have liked to engage in speech of this prohibited by this policy and therefore i should get compared nominal damages i think they would have to say i would have i don't think it would be enough say i might have but if they came in and  said i intended to engage in speech but i refrained from doing so because i was threatened with severe campus discipline if i did so under the policy yes i think every one of those people have suffered an injury in fact if that's traceable to the government's policy justice sotomayor counsel it seems to defy our case law that says a generalized grievance that everyone is subject to every student does seems the quintessential lack of standing question that why should every citizen who believes the law is unconstitutional made when he developed this plan except route i'm a little lost as to how someone can just walk into court and say that chilled me from speaking and that would be enough so i guess the st is it's not a generalized grievance precisely because he has to make the sort of allegations you just talked about so if someone without a college campus and never had any intention engaging in any of their speech that person how do you prove new testified to it you could cross examine them as to its issues of saturday but yet ultimately the question is was a key intending to do something and was he chilled from doing it because the government had a policy that prohibitive it and again the plaintiffs the respondents in this case haven't disputed that he had standing to sue if they hadn't restricted the road limited their policy no one is disputing that he had an injury in fact that would have let him bring a effectuate when he wanted to do an on like his colleague who actually was in the midst of speaking and was stopped so that could be i see easily how that's an injury but i'm not quite sure that it could be an injury cases that you have fall into three groups the one are they are declaratory judgment actions and the world before declaratory judgment actions another or if their way is to try to determine  that every injury imports damage in the nature and and if no other damages established the party injured is entitled to a verdict for nominal damages that is essentially a recognition of a form of liquidated compensatory harm of at least a dollar because the violation of a right isn't harmless and if it's not harmless it's entitle to at least dollar he then went on to say a force your if there is a risk for future harm that would support a nominal damages but i think the critical point to recognize the likelihood of a future trespass or future assault or a future mis train none of that future likelihood would be come close to meeting the article three requirements we have today of likelihood of future injury same justice  precisely because there wasn't the likely to feature harm the respondents emphasize harmless but the reality is that after the appellate court there recognized it was an error not to war a nominal damages even though there was no likelihood of future harm so i think that it very clearly demonstrates that the common law courts were not viewing nominal damages as some sort of proto clarity or a judgement they recognize that for example what does the story said it was it was a recognition that every injury imports damaging the nature of it just to make sure i understand at least part of that response justice kagan posited a that i believe it was or nd bucket of cases in which today we're able to and do mon e what may be had been before hard to monetize claims of emotional distress and things like that is is the essence of your response yes maybe we do and we have great lawyers and economists who can do that today but one need not do that for article three purposes because historically it was not done that's right the common law court and congress ratified that was section one hundred and eighty three dollars were entirely side that you with least get a dollar that if you have a clever lawyers and you can do the sort of thing that justice kagan identified then you can get more you can get quantified you can get compensatory damages for want to buy a bill at specific evidence of harm but perhaps one shouldn't be penalized for lacking you and good morning counsel picking up on justice thomas question and the last part of justice prior's question i'm trying to again figure out what's really at stake here this is not about the one dollar i wouldn't  think the concern about litigation being prolonged or an advisory opinion you say that can be answered as i understand it because the defendant can always just surrender to the judgment and the district court would enter judgment without  correct that's correct ok so that leaves me with a strong suspicion that attorney's fees is one striving all of us on both sides because under buckhannon correct me if i'm wrong if you sue for injunctive relief the fan and changes the policy has happened here you get no chinese fees correct yes that's correct ok but if you have nominal damages you can get attorney's fees potentially cracked under far right so what seems to be driving this is that the reason the plainest one dollar nominal damages point is generally one nominal them just to be available  think under for art is a reasonable is in korea and i think there are two main things you would look at i think you would look at why the plate of saud that they seek seventeen million dollars in only get one or do they see one dollar from the out of them only get it and then the other thing i think you want to say happened i think that if the defendant changed their policy years into the litigation i think there'd be a much stronger case for the plaintiffs today being able to say that they later gave the case ultimately get some relief and make them a pro sound like an end run around by canon what way of getting at that point is no the majority of circuits do accept your theory and say that there is that nominal damages can keep the case law or put differently that seeking nominal damages a plaintiff would have standing to seek nominal damages alone being the federal government isn't subject to nominal damages and lots of other statutes besides ninety maybe three don't often write a novel damages but if nominal damages are otherwise legally available then it would be difficult for a certain mood out nominal is there are lots of types of monetary relief that are neither dealing with future harm nor based on quantifiable evidence of past harm punitive damages statutory damages tr damages all of those would seem to violate under article three under respondents theory but all those aren't questionably permissible i think the solution that for why all those are permissible shows why nominal damages are permissible to it is that a monetary relief has traditionally be right when recognized as a proper form of or a crash for past injury in fact and that simple rule is sufficient to rule for the petitioners here thank past injuries when there is no longer any threat that a plaintiff injury will recur in the future cases save for move this only if the court could still give the point of something that redress is what's now a purely past injury but nominal damages do not fit that bill generally past injuries are addressed through compensation but both modern and historical authorities agree that nominal damages aren't compensation unlike other kinds of damages the law affirmatively strips nominal damages of that role there and ended terminated and trivial so precisely because they're given as a symbol that although the plaintiffs proved a legal violation they're entitled to exactly zero compensation for it that means nominal damages can as independent redress for purely past injuries and the body of common law bears that out and full of cases awarding nominal damages when giving them could establish protect the plaintiffs legal rights going forward or when the gesture given after a plaintiff failed to prove compensable injury for a legal violation but petitioners haven't cited a single common law case that decided the merits of a legal claim where a plaintiff had sought only nominal damages and awarding them couldn't affect the plaintiff ongoing legal rights or interest without a working theory for how nominal damages can actually redress past injuries or historical evidence for that claim the conclusion has to be that they are images war vailable in the same role as what you would normally see a declaratory judgment claim brought today when it concerns the legality of past conduct so our test would be whether the nominal damages could redress the continuing present adverse declaratory judgment and if for some reason a declaratory judgment is not available then the nominal damages are not sufficient and in other words it's just using the wrong label for the type of action you're bringing it i could envision a case where nominal dama es might have a separate role because they are discretionary like equitable remedies but generally that's that's correct or are just a story for name has been bandied about a little bit what what is your answer to his position common law was that the petitioners or the plaintiffs had a damages claim and so they would bring that damages claim and you see that in all of the tissue cases and if they weren't able to prove it the nominal damages could be given to reflect that outcome but i think the more important thing about  said that if you do prevail you get statutory damages of one dollar is that a suit that can be brought to an image of god and i think that's a difficult question normally statutory damages w whole reason that common law courts would allow giving him a nominal dollar is because it was a trivial which meant that it could serve as that symbol to arguably congress when they do that if all they're doing is getting that same pretty osama and it's really a vehicle for advisory opinion and i think the court would have to love carefully at that well i mean is your answer the same with the allegation that you know from the gas and it took the drives the three blocks to to this to the campus or something like that is you would you say that's just too small no a different answer there because that's compensatory damages whatever the amount are recognized as relief of a past injury that was true of common law even when the amount of damages were small on it's true today in this court's decisions like scrap i think it's only in the circumstances where the the damages being given are the specific nominal damages remedy or something that that sort of trying to do that by some other means that you run into the problem of not having any sort of compensation for a past harm justice thomas thank you mr chief justice general  understand the potential resistance of that right that you need standing for separate for each separate claim of relief the answer is that the common law these claims are not quite in the alternative claim that allowed petitioners that allowed the plaintiffs to seek relief was a damages claim if they stated a legal injury they got it imported the damage and they got that claim that would allow the court to adjudicate the merits and then the nominal damages awarded if they weren't able to prove substantial damages was just a symbolic gesture they reflected the outcome and allowed the court to get caught but it but a court said over and over that it wasn't actually compensating anything actually in the  response and all i can say is that the common law those courts didn't treat it like that and they didn't treat it as getting any separate relief they treated it as an outcome or a symbol for that how come so it's it's college you can't pray here young student and imagine that policy is unconstitutional and tows he was stopped from what's the damage and you say there was no damage there was what is it how do you measure it i don't know and the famous speech he wanted to speak there he was for constitutional unconstitutionally for him to do it well prior they do not certainly that sedation is possession they want nominal damages to address harms that are difficult or impossible to quantify but that's just not what nominal damages did at the common law and there were other solutions that the fairly good line to draw to keep the keep the cases out of the court where all you have is a theoretical argument but this is unconstitutional never hurt you from those cases where there is unconstitutionality and genuine harm but difficult to measure justice for i don't think it's a a line that this court is allowed to draw because it draws well article three draws from the common law and the common law says that nominal damages don't serve that role but in addition there are other solutions to that concern st of course go ahead lou st of course that those kinds of harms often result in more established kinds of compensable injury whether it's intangible injuries like emotional distress or tangible ones in addition in some kinds of cases petitioners can seek compensation precisely for lost opportunities to exercise constitutional rights the voting rights context is an important one and that's one that the court noted in stitcher where pointers can actually see compensatory damages for those not smaller difficult to measure past harm what they want is a change in the law or policy and of course prospect of relief is available for that and then finally it's always on the table for congress to offer  kind of statutory damages of a non trivial amount to see if it turns out that there's a class of cases where those kinds of harms aren't and need to be compensated thank you difficult question and i think it's difficult because you have two different common law analogues that you have to try to square the st analog is that at the common law two you had statutory damages and those  damages alone and they had standing to do that those were compensation often for kinds of harms that either were very easy to assign a value to or very hard but then you also had nominal damages and the reason nominal damages worked in their symbolic role of common laws because they were trivial so in congress the signs that trivial amount to quote unquote statutory damages i think you have to look hard at it to know whether it's actually something giving compensation or not have reasonably be regarded as a quantification a monetisation amount of the harms that it justice alito i don't think they have to precisely quantify the harm and in fact  again what i'd say is that i think is if you can reasonably say that that is compensation even if it's partial compensation or compensation for difficult to prove injuries then that provides article three redress and ice i think that that should be the presumption and it's only when you get down to that very small level maybe a dollar below because that's that's where we assign nominal damages today that you get into the the problem with congress possibly  justice alito i think i think there are two ways st there their principal purpose of common law of course was nominal damages awarded to establish a right so they would still serve that role here but what i gather you're getting at is is the sort of secondary role where you have a compensatory damages claim that fails before the end of the case and the answer there is one that's what common law courts did and we see that over and over that they didn't treat nominal damages as a separate claim of relief i just reflecting the outcome and then nd i think it gets to what we're really we're really getting out by asking this question no the common law courts did that the plain to say that it shows therefore that they compensated past harm but the common law courts say that they didn't do that when you're right a lot of very heavily in relying very heavily are on the common law do you want us just to apply the common law  of the cases that petitioners cite and that the government sites and that we cite there are no common or cases out there where plaintiffs were bringing nominal damages claims alone without any prospect of  redress all of those cases petitioners the plaintiffs that brought actual damages claims and then they failed for lack of proof but rather to punish the tortfeasor and deter him and others from similar extreme conduct if a case has been mooted because an act is not capable of repetition there's no need to impose think the difference between punitive damages and nominal damages and frankly between other kind of monetary really phenomenal damages is only nominal damages are conceived of as a symbol for zero compensation punitive damages although their purpose is to deter and to punish they can they they don't have that sort of legal roadblock that prevents them from being any kind of relief or passed harms and in fact professor dob and other remedies scholars explain that they do provide some incidental compensation although the authorizes them for other purposes and i think eleven example from this court cases steel company notes that the civil penalties that were awarded in that case if they were awarded to the point of even though they were painted of would provide a sort of compensation or redress to the plaintiff themselves even though that's not their purpose so i think those are just distinct from nominal damages and my  counsel is that then you're talking about quantify an amount of damage sant you're basically saying one dollar not enough when we said even for compensatory damages that no matter how small your injury and even if a jury gives you one dollar but that would be enough as compensatory damages not down nominal damages you've proven injury and nominal damages are directed to be paid to the plaintiff's he or she thing i think they got too much i certainly precise did over many cases in which the juries award was infinitesimally small compared to the claimed injuries but you've been still compensated i don't understand why one dollar is not viewed as a form of alternative compensation just the said i or the reason that the dollar of compensatory damages is compensation for a past injury is because we've accepted that which is really a legal fiction that it offers that it offers the plaintiffs on the substitutionary relief or whatever their loss was whether i tangible or intangible the problem is that again nominal damages that common law warrant conceived of in that way a chorus of commentators and cases say that they aren't compensation but that shambolic only mccormick on damages says there is no sense compensation english cases like beaumont vs great head say that they have no existence in point of quantity and then the whole council we go back to the food to the starting point of my question compensation it's not clear to me what else that dollar could be doing to redress the plaintiff again the reason the dollars redress past harms is because they are compensation but when they're not and the common law says that nominal damages  not then you need an alternative explanation for what they're doing to specifically redress the plain to see injury and we don't see that from from the petition or from anywhere else justice  it is symbolic of the fact that the plaintiffs proved a legal violation one of the practical reasons common law courts gave nominal damages was was so that they could say that they could count that a victory in the sense that they could carry cost the problem is that it was also symbolic of the fact that the plaintiff either didn't have a compensable injury or wasn't able to prove it in any amount and if you let me give you a case i don't know what case in favor of going to represent both to me and to the world of women who have experienced what i've experienced that's what the jury gave her a dollar and it was all physical harm but she she had the ability to see compensatory damages for that in the proving the point however it is not something that federal courts exist to do however important that dollar is to taylor swift or anyone else  pick up there just so just so we start on a agreed slate it isn't the amount that's the problem one dollar isn't the problem so if the plaintiff here had introduced a boss receipt for fair of less than a dollar and demonstrated that was tied to his in tree that would count and if miss swift ted come in with some sort of receipt of some kind that would support her one dollar claim right right damages sure i understand i got that point so i think the result is a rule the disadvantage is perhaps two classes of persons particularly st may be those like miss swift who have some scruple or reason not to seek more who could and we had a lot of them briefs from religious groups that indicate for example that they have religious scruples against seeking damages for some entries they've suffered so they lose out people like mr swift and groups like that and then it seems to me the nd group that the losers out are individuals whose claims are not sufficiently great to attract the attention of clever lawyers and economists to come up with damages theories emotional harm and distress is a particular example areas where it's difficult to quantify damages and expensive to do so require a large enough damage to justify the effort so we disadvantage persons like that it seems to me that's because those are the kind of classes of persons exactly for whom proof about damages and i think that's often to happen in that nd class of cases i talked about where the damages are not great enough to warrant the work so what you say about that again does its course and i guess going back to my college plea with justice prior i think there are a lot of ways that those plaintiffs could still see come to an satori damages and maybe it's a little bit of extra work but i'm not sure that great hope it gets requires us to think about the established kinds of damages that you can get as a result of violations of those particular legal right adding an emotional court tell them that their rights have been violated and again that that's not what the federal courts are and thank you one last question i'd like to squeeze in quickly you'd agree that in those cases where we have the bus receipt showing zero dollars twenty five cents against you here potentially the history of the common law cases the precedent of this court that seems to have recognized and certain situations  kerry that we'd have to deal with the line drawing problem that justice alito raised in other words how do we distinguish potential statutes congress might and that that awarded a dollar or or that kind of statutory damages and just to sort of my were asked about various forms of damages to have one drawing and then one thing i want to ask you about this seems to be working fine in all the other circuits that allow nominal damages at least i'm not aware that there's huge problems is that incorrect just and i realize it's not a legal point more practical point but can you respond and just haven't i would point you at least to the said fourteen through eighteen i can't say that there are sort of floodgates opened of nominal damages claims in those circuits but you do have cases where governments even those sort of acting in good faith to make policy changes have still sort of face the problems of litigating suits for long periods of time and getting hit with large damages awards despite sort of quick resolutions looming let me ask you about that and you obviously have an answer to everything i just mentioned on the law with some of the practical problems you've raised and one of them right there the extended or wasteful wit is a real concern but even beyond that we often have individual public servants who are who have been sudanese cases i think it's probably not fair to them for governments to force them to accept particularly if there's a liability judgment on it might be a different case if we could literally get deposit a dollar and a case that was moved but i'm not sure of a procedure or mechanism for doing that ok and then on the attorney's fees question that's been raised  those if those were fully available then that would provide obviously an incentive for some plaintiffs to continue litigating even if there was no other injunctive or compensatory relief st but my understanding though the case law farrar and seems to be how it's applied in most lower courts is that plan is to not receive much in the way of attorney's fees when they only receive nominal damages and therefore the incentive points about why nominal damages are insufficient under article three wine being there the prospective not retrospective point these are really declaratory judgments and then the other focusing on the amount and saying the very trivial amount shows that the can't be compensatory but it seems to me that in your responses to justice alito is questions justice kagan is questions justice for such squash and is kind of gone back and forth on the cherry ality of the money point so you know you  suggested to justice alito that at some point it's a little money that really should be taken into account but of course our presidents say that you know even even a small amount is enough and so on the taylor swift example or injustice or such as bus fare example i heard you at least i took you to concede that even a very trivial amount would constitute a compensatory injury under article three so is that part of your argument still with respect to nominal damages are you are you still hanging your hat on the amount the one dollar being too little and just exclusively focusing on the focusing on the prospect of nature the trivial nature of the award just disparate matters only now so that it serves as a symbol but doesn't offer any compensation that would be different but our primary argument is simply that you know all the images in their nature do not service any compensation  more right the legal right but sexual assault is reprehensible and wrong are we looking at the motivation for the suit so could nominal damages actually be compensatory for one person but not for another you kno itself so what is the effect of your argument on the very very many consumer protection statutes we have like the telephone consumer protection act or the fair debt collection practices act you know i think in those cases statutory damages we might think of them you know let's say it's one hundred dollars but you're also going to chinese fees as about vindicating you know all right and having a deterrent effect and you know that the industry if congress reduced that amount of statutory damages down to a dollar i mean i don't see why it's any different so with this call into question whether those causes of action really are unconstitutional under article three in many cases i mean you know it under the telephone consumer protection act you get a couple annoying texts you know that's that's pretty slight as a statutory damage you know if you seek statutory damages are you seeking anything other than to to vindicate that compensatory does the spirit i think it is then and the last example you gave i think is helpful one but if the injury at issue is a slight injury then a slight amount of damages would still be viewed as or we could presume that it still compensatory damages when it's given a officials to review their policies and just ten weeks later to revise them in a way that maximize their respected st amendment rights on campus not just for petitioners but for all students and it even led to an enduring statewide policy change for every public college in georgia that kind of early out of court resolution should be encouraged and keeping nominal damages in their limited historical role does that while still allowing existing moves this doctrine to guard against bad faith are strategic moving and then nd whatever the policy implications this case comes down to what kinds of cases article three allows federal courts to resolve article three takes its court choose from common law practice and the common law made clear over and over that it's just wrong to think of nominal damages as a small amount of compensation that respond st to return to st principles partial preterist is still retracts the score is how that roll over and over again when money changes hands that is a tangible benefit for article three purposes several justices have raised questions as to what the purpose of vindication and then vacation does occur through a nominal damages award just as with any other award rd compensation yes it provides compensation and an amount that recognizes the damages done and that too purpose under article three my nd point is that as justice alito mentioned with my friend statutory damages statutory damages should satisfy article three and my friends on the other side suggest that they do the reason that they do it for the reasons i just mentioned and there's no principled basis to deny nominal damages claims here but common law has a number of cases where there is no compensatory claims asserted and there's no prospective relief at issue yet the court still awarded nominal damages doherty moon thompson even ashby recognizes that a cut from the ear is sufficient for nominal damages that on pages eight through ten all of those cases a reply brief there's so many carve out under my friend's rule that it proves the rule and the practical effect boxes out especially civil rights victim the rule works it's a long standing goal this and that place for hundreds of years and it three and this court has held that it's critical to not only the plaintiffs that are losing their civil rights and injured in these actions but it's critical to our nation and it's a noble purpose to vindicate those constitutional rights a change of the ru about a certain compensatory damages to prove those damages and instead of limiting the litigation it actually expands it complicates it and actually causes more liability for the government in closing in two thousand thirteen georges collinet officials knew that this rule was unconstitutional they received a letter telling cheek a that he was silenced not only violated his right but it results in the government walking away from past harms that they caused this is a solution that is in search of a problem but a reversal actually creates the problem thank you thank you holmes both the cases submitted