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8 

UZUEGBUNAM v. PRECZEWSKI 

Opinion of the Court 

That this rule developed at common law is unsurprising
in the light of the noneconomic rights that individuals had
at that time.  A contrary rule would have meant, in many 
cases, that there was no remedy at all for those rights, such
as due process or voting rights, that were not readily reduc-
ible to monetary valuation.  See D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies 
§3.3(2) (3d ed. 2018) (nominal damages are often awarded 
for a right “not economic in character and for which no sub-
stantial non-pecuniary award is available”); see also Carey 
v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 266–267 (1978) (awarding nominal
damages for a violation of procedural due process).  By per-
mitting  plaintiffs  to  pursue  nominal  damages  whenever 
they  suffered  a  personal  legal  injury,  the  common  law 
avoided  the  oddity  of  privileging  small-dollar  economic
rights over important, but not easily quantifiable, nonpecu-
niary rights. 

B 
Respondents and the dissent attempt to discount this his-
torical  line  of  cases  by  contending  that  something  other
than nominal damages provided redressability.  They argue
instead  that  courts  could  award  nominal  damages  only
when a plaintiff pleaded compensatory damages but failed
to  prove  a  specific  amount.    In  those  circumstances,  they
say,  the  plea  for  compensatory  damages  is  what  satisfied 
the redressability requirement, and courts awarded nomi-
nal damages merely as a technical matter.  We do not agree.
To begin with, the cases themselves did not require a plea
for compensatory damages as a condition for receiving nom-
inal  damages.  Lord  Holt  spoke  in  categorical  terms:
“[E]very injury imports a damage,” so a plaintiff who proved
a legal violation could always obtain some form of damages
because  he  “must  of  necessity  have  a  means  to  vindicate
and maintain [the right].”  Ashby, 2 Raym. Ld., at 953–955, 
92 Eng. Rep., at 136–137.  Justice Story’s language was no 
less definitive: “The law tolerates no farther inquiry than