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8 

UZUEGBUNAM v. PRECZEWSKI 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

violation alone was not sufficient to ground a lawsuit.  See 
Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  Agency  §236,  p. 200  (1839) 
(“[T]he rule applies, that though it is a wrong, it is without 
any damage; and, to maintain an action, both must concur; 
for damnum absque injuria, and injuria absque damno, are 
equally  objections  to  any  recovery.”).    Perhaps  Justice 
Story’s conflicting statements can be reconciled, see ante, at 
7; Hessick, Standing, Injury in Fact, and Private Rights, 93 
Cornell L. Rev. 275, 283, n. 38 (2008), but neither his com-
mentary  nor  Lord  Holt’s  dissent  provides  firm  footing  for 
the  position  that  a  plaintiff  could  seek  nominal  damages
without alleging actual damages or prospective harm. 

At bottom, the Court relies on a handful of indeterminate 
sources to justify a radical expansion of the judicial power.
The  Court  acknowledges  that  “the  rule  allowing  nominal
damages for a violation of any legal right . . . was not uni-
versally followed,” ante, at 7, but even this concession un-
derstates  the  equivocal  nature  of  the  historical  record.    I 
would  require  more  before  bursting  the  bounds  of  Article 
III. 

The Court spends little time trying to reconcile its analy-
sis with modern justiciability principles.  It cites in passing 
our decisions in Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247 (1978), Mem-
phis  Community  School  Dist.  v.  Stachura,  477  U. S.  299 
(1986), and Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U. S. 103 (1992), but those 
cases made no mention of Article III, and none involved a 
standalone claim for nominal damages.  The Court also con-
tends that nominal damages must provide redress because 
courts  would  otherwise  lack  jurisdiction  to  award  them, 
even where a plaintiff tries and fails to prove actual dam-
ages.  See ante, at 10.  But a claim for actual damages pre-
serves a live controversy, see Memphis Light, Gas & Water 
Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 1, 8–9 (1978), and a court does not 
lose jurisdiction just because that claim ultimately fails.

Finally, the Court argues that nominal damages provide 
Article III relief because they “affec[t] the behavior of the