Definition
A Latin plural form of damnum, used in old English law and practice to mean damages. The term appears in historical legal sources with two distinct — and sometimes contradictory — applications:
1. Damna inclusive of costs: Damages calculated to include the costs of suit, so that the total award encompasses both the underlying harm and the litigation expenses incurred.
2. Damna exclusive of costs: Damages calculated apart from costs of suit, reflecting only the compensation for the substantive injury and excluding procedural expenses.
A recognized variant form, damna in duplo, refers to double damages — an early statutory remedy authorizing an award of twice the proven loss.
Common Confusion
The term's ambiguity is built in. Historical sources use damna to mean both damages-with-costs and damages-without-costs, sometimes in the same treatise depending on context. Researchers encountering damna in a historical document cannot assume which meaning applies without examining the surrounding procedural context and the specific authority being cited. This is not a modern drafting error — the dual usage was present in the classical sources and carried forward into early English practice.
Why It Matters in Research
Damna is a term of historical significance only; it does not appear in modern pleading or statutory language. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal records, Year Books, Coke's reports, and early treatises. The central research trap is the term's internal ambiguity: a document awarding "damna" may or may not include costs depending on the procedural stage, the court, and the era. Cross-referencing the surrounding record — particularly whether a separate costs entry exists — is essential to interpreting any award denominated in damna.
The compound form damna in duplo is the more navigable usage, as double damages had a specific statutory foundation in the Statute of Westminster II (1285), chapter 26. When this phrase appears in historical records, it signals a deliberate punitive or remedial doubling authorized by statute rather than ordinary compensatory relief. Researchers tracing the history of multiple damages, punitive damages, or statutory penalty provisions should treat damna in duplo as an early ancestor of those doctrines.
Connections to damnum (the singular root) are important: damnum carries its own doctrinal weight in phrases like damnum absque injuria (loss without legal injury) and damnum fatale (inevitable loss). Damna, as the plural, appears primarily in the procedural and remedial context of court judgments rather than in the substantive liability analysis where damnum typically operates.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) gives a compressed entry: "damages, both inclusive and exclusive of costs" — acknowledging the dual usage without resolving it. This is accurate as a summary but offers no guidance on which meaning governs in a given context.
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the more instructive source. Burrill cites 10 Co. 116b and Co. Litt. 257a for the inclusive usage, and 10 Co. at the same location for the exclusive usage — a citation pattern that itself reflects how closely the two meanings coexisted in the Coke materials. Burrill also separately identifies damna in duplo and traces it to the Statute of Westminster II, c. 26, grounding the double-damages form in its statutory origin. This is the most useful historical anchor the secondary sources provide.
Neither dictionary engages substantively with the doctrinal significance of the distinction or with how courts resolved the ambiguity in practice. The historical dictionaries treat damna as a vocabulary item rather than a contested term, which understates the interpretive difficulty for researchers working with actual historical records.
Jurisdictional Note
Damna is specific to the old English common law tradition and early English statutory practice. It does not appear as a term of art in American, Scottish, or civil law jurisdictions in any operative sense. Researchers working in colonial American records may encounter it in documents derived from English practice but should not expect consistent usage even there.