Nominal Damages

Plain English

Sometimes a contract is broken, but you suffer no actual loss—or the loss is so small it's hard to prove. A court may award nominal damages, often just one dollar or a few dollars, to acknowledge the breach happened. This preserves your legal right to say you won, even though you're not getting meaningful money. It's useful when you want to establish that someone violated your rights.

Example

A neighbor agrees in writing to maintain a shared fence but never does. You fix it yourself for $200, but you don't sue. Years later, you sue just to establish he breached the agreement, and the court awards $1 in nominal damages because you can't prove you lost money.

Used in a sentence

“Although the defendant clearly breached the contract, the plaintiff recovered only nominal damages because she suffered no measurable financial loss.”

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