Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2021

Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski

592 U.S. 279 | 141 S. Ct. 792 | 209 L. Ed. 2d 94

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that nominal damages—even one dollar—can keep a federal case alive when they seek redress for a completed violation of the plaintiff's legal rights.

Background

While enrolled at Georgia Gwinnett College, Chike Uzuegbunam, an evangelical Christian, spoke with other students and distributed religious literature in an outdoor campus plaza. A campus officer told him to stop because college policy limited such activity to two small designated speech areas and required a permit. Uzuegbunam obtained a permit, but another officer stopped him after complaints about his speech, invoking a policy prohibiting speech that disturbed another person's peace or comfort. The officer threatened disciplinary action if Uzuegbunam continued. Joseph Bradford, another student of the same faith, then chose not to engage in religious speech because of what happened to Uzuegbunam.

The students sued college officials under the First Amendment, seeking injunctive relief and nominal damages. The college repealed the challenged policies rather than defend them. The parties agreed that repeal mooted the request for injunctive relief, but disputed whether the request for nominal damages kept the case alive. The District Court dismissed the suit, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, reasoning that nominal damages alone could not establish standing when the students had not sought compensatory damages. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a plaintiff alleging a completed constitutional violation satisfies Article III's redressability requirement by seeking only nominal damages after the challenged policy has been repealed.

Holding

Yes. A request for nominal damages supplies redressability for a completed violation of a legal right and therefore can keep the case from becoming moot.

Reasoning

Article III requires injury in fact, traceability, and redressability. The parties did not dispute, for purposes of the appeal, that officials had completed a violation of Uzuegbunam's constitutional rights when they enforced the speech policies against him. The only question was whether a nominal-damages award could redress that already-completed injury.

The Court looked to common-law practice because Article III cases and controversies are traditionally understood in light of disputes courts historically could resolve. At common law, the prevailing rule was that an invasion of a legal right itself supported nominal damages even without proof of actual monetary loss. This rule covered retrospective injuries as well as situations in which a plaintiff sought to prevent a future threat to property or other rights.

That history mattered especially for nonpecuniary rights. If a plaintiff could obtain relief only by proving readily measurable economic loss, courts would protect minor financial interests more readily than important rights, such as voting, due process, or free speech, whose injuries may be real but difficult to price. Nominal damages recognized that a legal wrong itself imports damage.

Nominal damages are not merely a symbolic judicial statement. They are an award on the merits that the plaintiff may collect from the defendant. Although a dollar is ordinarily only partial relief, Article III does not require complete relief; a remedy that partly redresses the injury is enough. Unlike attorney's fees and costs, which are incidental byproducts of a successful action, nominal damages are merits relief themselves.

The Court emphasized the limits of its holding. A nominal-damages request does not eliminate the need to show a concrete, particularized injury, traceability, a valid cause of action, and compliance with other justiciability requirements. Nor did the Court decide whether Bradford had suffered a completed injury; the District Court was to decide that question on remand.

Issue #2

Whether nominal damages are available only when a plaintiff first pleads compensatory damages but fails to prove their amount.

Holding

No. A claim for compensatory damages is not a prerequisite to nominal damages for a completed violation of a legal right.

Reasoning

The Court rejected the Eleventh Circuit's view that nominal damages are only a fallback award for a plaintiff who unsuccessfully seeks compensatory damages. Common-law authorities treated nominal damages as the default damages available once a plaintiff established an invasion of a legal right, unless the plaintiff proved entitlement to a larger compensatory, statutory, or punitive award.

A failed claim for compensatory damages also could not supply jurisdiction at the final judgment stage. Standing must persist throughout litigation and must be shown separately for each form of relief. Once a plaintiff has failed to establish compensatory damages, that abandoned or unsuccessful request cannot independently support a judgment; nominal damages must themselves furnish the necessary redress.

Concurrences

Justice Kavanaugh

Reasoning

Justice Kavanaugh agreed that history and precedent establish that nominal damages satisfy Article III redressability for a completed violation and can preserve an otherwise moot case. He wrote separately to endorse a practical limitation urged by the Chief Justice and the United States: a defendant should be able to accept entry of judgment for nominal damages and thereby end the litigation without requiring a judicial resolution of the underlying constitutional merits.

Dissents

Chief Justice Roberts

Reasoning

Chief Justice Roberts argued that the case was moot because the students had left the college, the disputed policies had been rescinded, and the students alleged neither actual damages nor a continuing risk of injury. In his view, nominal damages do not alter a plaintiff's position, compensate a loss, or prevent future harm; they amount only to a judicial declaration that the plaintiff's legal theory was correct. Article III does not authorize federal courts to issue that kind of advisory opinion.

He rejected the majority's reliance on common-law nominal-damages practice. English courts operated within a constitutional structure fundamentally different from the independent federal Judiciary created by Article III, including a tradition of advisory opinions from judges to the Crown. Historical forms of action therefore could not alone establish that a bare nominal-damages request creates a modern federal case or controversy.

The Chief Justice also read the historical evidence more narrowly. In his view, common-law courts commonly awarded nominal damages when a prevailing plaintiff had sought and failed to prove actual damages, or when the award served a prospective declaratory function. The majority did not identify a sufficiently clear historical practice allowing plaintiffs to seek solely retrospective nominal damages without alleging either actual loss or prospective harm.

Roberts maintained that actual-damages claims preserve a live dispute even if they ultimately fail, whereas a standalone nominal-damages claim does not redress any concrete injury. He warned that the majority's rule would let plaintiffs keep virtually any dispute alive by adding a request for one dollar, turning federal courts into a low-cost source of legal advice. Although he thought a defendant might avoid that result by accepting judgment for a dollar, he regarded it as problematic that federal jurisdiction would depend on whether the defendant chose to pay.