Definition
Special damages are those damages that do not flow necessarily and automatically from the wrong alleged, but instead arise from the particular circumstances of the plaintiff's situation. Because they are not presumed by law, special damages must be specifically pleaded and proven — the plaintiff must identify them with particularity and produce evidence of their actual amount.
In practice, special damages typically include quantifiable economic losses such as medical expenses, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, and out-of-pocket costs directly caused by the defendant's conduct. These amounts are capable of precise calculation (or close approximation) because they correspond to real, documented expenditures or losses.
Special damages are distinguished from general damages, which the law presumes to flow naturally from the type of wrong alleged and need not be separately pleaded. The boundary between the two categories does real legal work: mislabeling damages — or failing to plead special damages at all — can result in their exclusion at trial.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Damages that can be quantified precisely, including such things as plaintiff's medical expenses, lost wages, and similar out-of-pocket costs, as contrasted with general damages such as pain and suffering, which must be estimated.
The Wiktionary definition captures the economic and quantifiable character of special damages accurately, but it glosses over the procedural obligation that defines the term in law. In legal practice, what makes damages "special" is not merely that they are calculable — it is that they do not arise by legal presumption and therefore must be affirmatively pleaded. A lay reader focusing only on the quantifiability angle may miss why the distinction matters procedurally, not just computationally.
Common Confusion
Special damages are frequently conflated with general damages, and the line between them shifts depending on context. In tort law, general damages are those presumed to result from the type of injury alleged — pain and suffering being the classic example — while special damages are the particularized economic losses that vary plaintiff by plaintiff. In contract law, the terminology maps differently: "special damages" often corresponds to what courts call consequential damages — losses beyond the ordinary measure of contract breach, recoverable only when they were foreseeable to the breaching party at the time of contracting. Researchers moving between tort and contract sources should confirm which framework governs the authority they are reading, as the same phrase carries distinct doctrinal weight in each context.
Special damages also should not be confused with punitive or exemplary damages, which are neither compensatory nor tied to the plaintiff's actual losses, but are instead awarded to punish egregious conduct.
Core Elements
Because special damages must be specifically pleaded and proven, courts generally require that a plaintiff establish:
Particularity of pleading: The specific items of special damage must be identified in the complaint or equivalent pleading. A general demand for damages is insufficient to preserve a claim for special damages.
Causation: Each item must be shown to flow from the defendant's wrongful act, not from a pre-existing condition or independent cause.
Actual loss: The amount claimed must be supported by evidence — receipts, wage records, expert testimony, or comparable documentation. Special damages are not estimated in the manner that general damages may be.
Non-necessity: The item of damage must be one that does not automatically arise from the type of injury alleged. If the loss would be presumed by law from the nature of the wrong, it is general, not special.
Why It Matters in Research
The pleading requirement is the research trap most likely to produce bad results when working through historical materials. Before modern notice pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and equivalent state reforms), the failure to plead special damages with specificity was fatal — courts strictly enforced the distinction, and cases were lost on it. Older case law and treatises reflect a world of code pleading and common law pleading where this line had hard procedural edges. A researcher applying historical doctrine to a modern pleading problem must account for this shift.
The tort/contract divide compounds the problem. In contract sources — particularly older equity and common law contract materials — "special damages" frequently means what Hadley v. Baxendale established as the second branch of consequential damages: losses beyond the ordinary, recoverable only if foreseeable at contracting. Tort sources use the term differently. When searching the Law Mind corpus across both torts and contract/remedies collections, treat the term as context-dependent and confirm the doctrinal framework before drawing on an authority from one domain to support a position in the other.
Jurisdictional variation in defamation law adds another wrinkle. In defamation cases, the pleading of special damages has historically been required for certain categories of defamatory statements (those not defamatory on their face, or slander not falling within per se categories). This creates a discrete body of defamation doctrine around special damages that operates somewhat independently of the general tort framework. Historical dictionaries and case law from defamation-heavy research should be read with this specialized usage in mind.
The Remedies encyclopedia entry on this term addresses future damages and lost earning capacity, which can create confusion: lost future wages are special damages because they are particularized and must be proven, even though they have not yet been incurred. Researchers should note that "special" does not mean "past" — it means "not legally presumed."
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary offers the clearest historical formulation: special damages are "damages not necessarily resulting from an injury complained of" and require specific pleading to avoid prejudicing the defendant with surprise. Burrill's framing captures both the substantive point (non-necessity) and the procedural rationale (notice) simultaneously, which is useful because modern treatments sometimes separate the two.
Bouvier's entry, as reflected in the source material provided, is abbreviated in this corpus excerpt. However, Bouvier's fuller treatment in other editions is consistent with Burrill: the necessity of averring special damages in the pleading is emphasized, and the distinction between damages implied by law and those requiring proof is central.
Both sources reflect a pleading-era framework that treats the special/general distinction primarily as a procedural rule governing what must appear on the face of the complaint. Modern treatises have retained the substantive distinction while softening the procedural consequences under notice pleading regimes. Historical sources are reliable for understanding the origin and rationale of the rule; they should be used cautiously when advising on modern procedural sufficiency.
Neither Bouvier nor Burrill addresses the contract law usage with any depth, which reflects the extent to which damages doctrine was primarily organized around tort and pleading concerns in their era. For contract-side special damages, the historical dictionary shelf is a secondary resource at best.
Jurisdictional Note
While the special/general damages distinction is recognized across American jurisdictions, defamation law shows the sharpest jurisdictional variation: some states retain traditional per quod categories requiring special damages to be pleaded for non-facial defamation, while others have modified or abandoned strict per quod pleading requirements. Researchers working on defamation claims should not assume uniform treatment of special damages pleading across state courts.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Damages and Remedies in Tort — Special Damages (Medical, Lost Wages, Property) (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) [torts_166]
Special Damages — Medical Expenses, Lost Wages, Lost Earning Capacity, and Future Damages (The Law Mind Remedies & Equity Encyclopedia) [remedies_3]
Damages and Remedies in Tort — Nominal Damages in Tort (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) [torts_172]