Legal Definitions - abridgment of damages

Abridgment of damages refers to the power of a court to reduce the amount of monetary compensation (damages) that a jury has awarded to a party in a lawsuit. This reduction typically occurs when the court determines that the jury's award is excessive, unsupported by the evidence presented during the trial, or otherwise legally inappropriate.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Imagine a personal injury case where a jury awards a plaintiff $3 million for a minor injury that resulted in only a few weeks of physical therapy and no long-term disability. The defendant's legal team might argue that this amount is far too high compared to similar cases and the actual harm suffered. The judge, agreeing that the jury's award is excessive and not reasonably supported by the medical evidence, could then use their authority to abridge the damages, reducing the award to a more reasonable sum, such as $500,000.

• Consider a business dispute where a company sues a competitor for unfair business practices. The jury, perhaps influenced by emotional testimony, awards the plaintiff $10 million in lost profits. However, the financial evidence presented during the trial only demonstrated a maximum of $2 million in provable lost profits. In this scenario, the court might intervene to abridge the damages, reducing the award to the $2 million figure, as that is the highest amount supported by the actual financial data and legal standards for calculating lost profits.

• In a case involving property damage, a jury might award a homeowner $500,000 for repairs to their house after a contractor's negligence. However, expert testimony and repair estimates presented during the trial clearly showed that the maximum cost to fully repair the damage was $150,000. The court, finding the jury's award to be significantly out of proportion to the actual cost of repairs, would likely exercise its right to abridge the damages, lowering the compensation to the amount reasonably necessary to fix the property.