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Page Number: 7.0

4 

UZUEGBUNAM v. PRECZEWSKI 

Opinion of the Court 

Uzuegbunam  alleges  occurred  when  campus  officials  en-
forced the speech policies against him. 

A 
In determining whether nominal damages can redress a
past injury, we look to the forms of relief awarded at com-
mon law.  “Article III’s restriction of the judicial power to
‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies’ is properly understood to mean 
‘cases and controversies of the sort traditionally amenable 
to, and resolved by, the judicial process.’ ”  Vermont Agency 
of  Natural  Resources  v.  United  States  ex  rel.  Stevens,  529 
U. S. 765, 774 (2000) (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better 
Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 102 (1998)); cf. Memphis Com-
munity School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U. S. 299, 306 (1986) 
(relief for “§1983 plaintiffs . . . is ordinarily determined ac-
cording  to  principles  derived  from  the  common  law  of 
torts”).  The parties here agree that courts at common law 
routinely  awarded  nominal  damages.    They,  instead,  dis-
pute what kinds of harms those damages could redress. 

Both sides agree that nominal damages historically could 
provide prospective relief.  The award of nominal damages 
was one way for plaintiffs at common law to “obtain a form 
of declaratory relief in a legal system with no general de-
claratory judgment act.”  D. Laycock & R. Hasen, Modern 
American Remedies 636 (5th ed. 2019).  For example, a tres-
pass to land or water rights might raise a prospective threat
to a property right by creating the foundation for a future 
claim  of  adverse  possession  or  prescriptive  easement. 
Blanchard v. Baker, 8 Me. 253, 268 (1832) (“If an unlawful 
diversion [of water] is  suffered for twenty years, it ripens
into a right, which cannot be controverted”).  By obtaining
a declaration of trespass, a property owner could “vindicate 
his  right  by  action”  and  protect  against  those  future 
threats.  Ibid.   Courts  at  common  law  would  not  declare 
property boundaries in the abstract, “but the suit for nomi-
nal  damages  allowed  them  to  do  so  indirectly.”    Laycock,