Definition
The formal process by which a court, jury, or authorized officer determines and fixes the specific dollar amount of damages owed by a losing party to the prevailing party in a civil action. Assessment of damages is a distinct procedural step that follows the establishment of liability — the question of whether a party is entitled to damages has already been resolved, and the assessment answers only how much.
Assessment may occur in two principal contexts:
1. After judgment by default: When a defendant fails to appear or respond and a default judgment is entered, the court must still determine the amount of damages. Liability is conceded by the default; the quantum remains to be fixed.
2. After verdict or judgment on liability: Where a jury or court finds for the plaintiff but leaves the damage amount to be separately determined, or where a writ of inquiry is issued to assist in that calculation.
The assessment itself may be conducted by the court directly, by a jury empaneled for that purpose, or by a delegated officer — historically a clerk, master, or prothonotary — to whom the matter is referred.
Common Confusion
ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGES vs. ASSESSMENT (tax or corporate): The word "assessment" appears in multiple distinct legal contexts. In tax law, an assessment is the official determination of a tax liability owed to a government authority — a proceeding between a taxpayer and the state. In corporate law, an assessment may refer to a call on shareholders to contribute additional capital. Neither of those meanings has any overlap with the assessment of damages, which is a private-law, post-judgment procedure between civil litigants. Researchers encountering the unqualified word "assessment" in a historical source must identify from context which variety is meant.
ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGES vs. LIQUIDATED DAMAGES: Where parties have agreed in advance (by contract) to a fixed sum payable upon breach, that sum is said to be liquidated. No assessment is needed — the amount is predetermined. Assessment of damages is the remedy for unliquidated claims, where the loss must be measured by the court or jury after the fact.
Why It Matters in Research
The procedural posture matters. An assessment of damages presupposes that liability has been settled. Researchers reading historical pleading records, default judgment dockets, or writ of inquiry proceedings should understand that documents labeled "assessment" are not re-litigating who won — they are resolving only the amount. Conflating the liability and damages phases is a common error when working with older court records.
Historical sources, including Burrill, describe the assessment as frequently delegated to an officer of the court rather than the judge or jury directly. This delegation practice — to clerks, masters, and prothonotaries — was standard in equity and common law courts through the nineteenth century. Researchers working with chancery records or federal equity proceedings pre-1938 (before the merger of law and equity under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) will encounter this referral structure regularly. The modern equivalent is a damages inquest or a magistrate judge referral.
The term "writ of inquiry" appears closely alongside assessment of damages in historical sources and practice manuals. The writ of inquiry was the procedural mechanism for summoning a jury to assess damages after a default or interlocutory judgment — it is functionally the instrument that triggers the assessment proceeding. Researchers working in pre-twentieth century common law jurisdictions should treat the two terms as procedurally linked.
Jurisdictional variation in the pre-codification era was significant. Whether assessment was done by jury, by the court, or by a referral officer depended on the forum (law vs. equity), the nature of the claim, and local practice. Do not assume a uniform procedure across historical American or English sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary defines assessment of damages as "the fixing or settling by a court or jury, of the amount of damages to be paid by the defendant or defeated party in an action," noting that court-directed assessment typically proceeded through a delegated officer — clerk, master, or prothonotary — and that the procedure was triggered after judgments by default. Burrill correctly flags that the assessment stage follows a prior determination of entitlement, though his entry, as preserved here, is truncated and does not address jury-assessed damages in fully contested actions or the role of the writ of inquiry in detail.
What historical dictionaries like Burrill tend to understate is the procedural complexity that arose in equity courts, where the master's role in assessing damages could involve extended fact-finding, accountings, and hearings that bore little resemblance to the relatively streamlined default-judgment assessment in common law actions. Researchers should not assume that Burrill's description of the process captures the equity practice.
Jurisdictional Note
Modern American practice largely addresses this procedure through rules governing default judgment damages hearings (e.g., Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(b)) and jury damage verdicts. The historical referral to a master or prothonotary persists in some state court systems and in specific federal equity-derived proceedings. English practice historically used the writ of inquiry as the formal vehicle; American courts adopted parallel mechanisms that varied by state.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The term "assessment" appears in the Law Mind Encyclopedia in tax and corporate contexts that are distinct from this entry. For comparative reference on related uses of the term:
- Jeopardy Assessments (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — tax_145
- Statute of Limitations Assessment (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — tax_173
- Corporate Finance: Stock Subscriptions and Assessments (The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia) — business_74
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses civil damages assessment as a procedural matter.