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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  















Damages - From: 1200 To: 1799

This page lists 9 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.

 
Sympson v Juxon (1624) Cro Jac 699
1624


Intellectual Property, Damages
At first instance, judgment had wrongly given possession of land to the plaintiff. Upon successful appeal the defendant had his land restored along with profits made meanwhile: "for the plaintiff in the writ of error is to be restored to all that he lost."
1 Citers


 
Stow v Wilmot [1685] EngR 3068; (1685) 3 Keb 61; (1685) 84 ER 595 (B)
1685


Damages

[ Commonlii ]
 
Fabrigas v Mostyn [1746] EngR 160; (1746-1779) 2 Black W 929; (1746) 96 ER 549 (A)
1746


Personal Injury, Damages
And as to the excess of damages, the Court were all of opinion, that it was very difficult to interpose with respect to the quantum of damages in actions for any personal wrong. Not that it can be laid down, that in no case of personal injury the damages can be excessive. Some may be so monstrous atid excessive, as to be in themselves an evidence of passion or partiality in the jury. In the present case the injury was great, and the jury (not the Court) are to estimate the adequate satisfaction. No prejudice or mishehaviour of any kind are or can be imputed to the jury.
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]
 
Flureau v Thornhill (1776) 2 Wm Bl 1078; 96 ER 635; [1746] EngR 175; (1746-1779) 2 Black W 1078; (1746) 96 ER 635
1746

Blackstone J, De Grey CJ
Land, Contract, Damages
A person who contracts to purchase land, but where the title is, without collusion, defective cannot claim for his loss of bargain. 'These contracts are merely upon condition, frequently expressed, but always implied, that the vendor has good title. If he has not, the return of the deposit with interest and costs, is all that can be expected.' 'Upon a contract for a purchase, if the title proves bad, and the vendor is, without fraud, incapable of making a good one, I do not think the pourchaser can be entitled to any damages for the fancied goodness of the bargain, which he supposes he has lost.'
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]
 
Huckle v Money (1763) 2 Wil's KB 205; [1799] EngR 225; (1799) 2 Wils KB 205; (1799) 95 ER 768
1763


Damages
An action for false imprisonment brought by a journeyman printer who apparently had played no part in printing the famous issue No. 45 of "The North Briton " but had been arrested under a warrant issued by a Secretary of State authorising a King's messenger to arrest the authors, printers and publishers of that issue (without naming or identifying any of them), to seize all their papers and to bring them before the Secretary of State to be examined by him. Held. The court made an award of exemplary damages of £300.
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]

 
 Radcliffe v Eden; 1776 - (1776) 2 Cowp 486
 
Ratcliffe v Eden et al [1776] EngR 58; (1776) 2 Cowp 485; (1776) 98 ER 1200
22 Nov 1776
KBD
Lord Mansfield, Aston J. Ashhurst J
Police, Damages
There had been a riot by sailors in Liverpool. The cort was asked whether the victim of a riot could recover compensation not only for the damage to his house but for also the destruction of the furniture and household goods within his house. The hundred argued that the victim could not recover for the furniture and goods as their destruction was a separate and independent act from the damage to the house. Held: The argument was rejected. The 1714 Act had altered the nature of the offence; rioters were no longer trespassers but felons and were to be hanged. Before the 1714 Act the trespassers would have been liable in damages. Under the Act the inhabitants of the hundred instead were liable in damages and this was an inducement to them to perform their duty of preventing or suppressing riots. As the destruction of the furniture and goods occurred at the same time as the damage to the house, it was part of the demolition of the house just as it would be if the pulling down of the house crushed the furniture.
Lord Mansfield stated: "This is the great principle of the law, that the inhabitants shall be in the nature of sureties for one another. It is a very ancient principle; as old as the institution of the decennaries by Alfred, whereby the whole neighbourhood or tithing of freemen were mutual pledges for each other's good behaviour. The same principle obtains in the Statutes of Hue and Cry. It is the principle here." Ashhurst J agreed.
Aston J advocated a liberal interpretation: "The object and principle of this Act was, to transfer the damages occasioned by the trespass, from the rioters to the hundred; to make it felony in the offenders themselves, and to put the party injured in the same state as before. It is a remedial law, and ought to be extended."
Riot Act 1714
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]
 
Hyde v Cogan And Others [1781] EngR 69; (1781) 2 Doug 699; (1781) 99 ER 445
22 Jun 1781

Willes, Ashhurst and Buller JJ
Police, Damages
After the anti-Catholic "Gordon Riots" in London in June 1780, which caused extensive damage and destruction of property, including Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury Square, damages were claied from the local hundred. The hundred argued that the 1714 Act was penal against both the trespasser and the hundred and ought to be interpreted narrowly. Held: (Lord Mansfield present but not taking part) It was not penal, but remedial, and was to be interpreted liberally.
Buller J said that, as a result, it should be interpreted liberally.
Willes J, said that the furniture in a London house might be worth twice as much as the house itself, and that a liberal interpretation brought household goods within the scope of the statutory compensation scheme.
1 Citers

[ Commonlii ]
 
Lukin v Godsall (1795) Peake Add Cas 15
1795


Damages
Where the person injured at the fault of the defendant reasonably goes to the expense of repairing his house, the tortfeasor may well be bound to pay the cost of repair less an allowance because new work takes the place of old.
1 Citers


 
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