In American law interest is in the discretion of the court, and is made to depend on the equity of the case. In both England and America compound interest, or interest on interest, appears to have been regarded with the horror that formerly attached to usury. Lord Eldon would not recognize as valid an agreement fo pay compound interest. And Chancellor Kent, and American lawyers generally, hold that compound interest cannot be taken except upon a special agreement made after the simple interest has become due. See Interest.
In actions of tort the discretion of the jury is not so strictly limited as in cases of breach of contract. The cases we have referred to show a general tendency to make the amount of damages a matter of legal certainty, and the jury can do little more than find the facts. If they travel beyond the contract the court will revise their verdict. But in estimating the damages for a civil injury, matter of aggravation may be taken into account. This position was strongly asserted in the cases arising out of the celebrated " General Warrants" in the time of Lord Camden, who is reported in one case to have said, " damages are designed not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but as a punishment to the guilty, and as a proof of the detestation in which the wrongful act is held by the jury." In another case he mentioned the importance of the question at issue, the attempt to exercise arbitrary power, as a reason why the jury might give exemplary damages. Another judge, in another case, said, " I remember a case when the jury gave 500 damages for knocking a man s hat off; and the court refused a new trial." And he urged that exemplary damages for personal insult would tend to prevent the practice of duelling. The right of the jury to give exemplary or vindictive damages has been repeatedly confirmed in recent cases, and the same doctrine prevails generally throughout the United States. In Scotch law the distinction between compensation and punishment has been more carefully maintained. In Baillie v. Bryson (1 Murray s Reports), Lord Chief Commissioner Adams said that Lord Kenyon had " introduced into cases of this sort a principle as to damages extremely dangerous in its con sequences. He considered such questions not merely as calculated to repair the injury done to the one party, but as a punishment of the other, and as intended to correct the morals of the country. The morals of the country have not been improved, and I am afraid its feeling has been much impaired. A civil court in matters of civil injury is a bad corrector of morals ; it has only to do with the rights of parties."
When both parties are in fault, if the plaintiff s conduct has contributed to the injuries, his claim for damages will not be sustained. This has been carried so far that it has been held that, when a person in one carriage receives injuries from the management of another carriage, he can not recover damages if any negligence, either on his own part or on the part of the owner or managers of the carriage in which he was, has contributed to the accident. (See Negligence.) In the Court of Admiralty, where the question constantly arises in cases of collision, a different rule has been adopted. When both vessels are in fault the whole amount of loss is divided between them. And by a section of the Judicature Act, 1873, the Admiralty rule in such cases is to be adopted in all the courts.
In the old action of criminal conversation, exemplary damages might be given, and now the petitioner in a divorce suit may be awarded exemplary damages by the jury against a cc-respondent. In this case, however, the disposition of the sum awarded as damages is in the discretion of the judge, who may apply it to the maintenance and education or otherwise to the benefit of children of the marriage.
Damages are said to be either general or special. The former are given for loses implied by law as the necessary consequences of the wrongful act. The latter are not im plied by law, but are compensation for such loss as may be proved to have been in fact caused by the wrongful act. Thus, in an ordinary slander, special damage must be alleged and proved to entitle the plaintiff to pecuniary compensation. But if a slander touches a person in the way of his trade, the law will presume that it caused loss to the plaintiff, with out calling on him to show what the loss actually was.
When a person was injured by the negligence of another, and died, the benefit of an action for damages did not sur vive to his representatives. But by the 9 and 10 Viet. c. 93 (commonly called Lord Campbell s Act), it is enacted that wherever the wrongful act is such as would have entitled the injured person to recover damages (if death had not ensued), the person who in such case would have been liable " shall be liable to an action for damages notwith standing the death of the person injured, and although the death shall have been caused under such circumstances as amount in law to felony." Every such action shall be brought for the benefit of the husband, wife, parent, and child of the deceased. "Child" includes grandchild and step-child, but not illegitimate child.
Loss caused by an act which is not wrongful (damnum absque injuria) cannot be the ground of an action for damages; e.g., if A s business is injured by his neighbour B starcing the same business, this is not an actionable loss.
Reference may be made to Sedgwick on TJie, Measure of Damages, or Mayne on the same subject.
DAMARALAND. See Hereroland.
the early Greek Church, derives his surname from Damascus, where he was born about the close of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century. His Arabic name was Mansur, and he received the epithet Chrysorrhoas (gold-pouring) on account of his eloquence. The principal account we have of his life is contained in a narrative of the 10th century, much of which is obviously legendary. His father Sergius was a Christian, but notwithstanding held a high office under the Saracen caliph, in which he was succeeded by his yon. Damascenus owed his education in philosophy, mathematics, and theology to an Italian monk named Cosmas, whom Sergius had redeemed from a band of captive slaves. About the year 730 he wrote several treatises in defence of image-worship, which the Emperor Leo, the Isauriau, was making strenuous efforts to suppress. Leo in revenge is said to have forged a treasonable letter, purporting to be from Damascenus, and to have sent it to his caliph, who ordered the traitor s right hand to be cut off. According to the narrative Damascenus immediately proceeded to prostrate himself before an image of the Virgin Mary, implored her intercession, and had the severed hand miraculously restored. The caliph was con vinced by the miracle, and offered to replace Damascenus in his office, but the latter resolved to forsake the world, divided his fortune among his friends and the poor, and betook himself to the monastery of St Sabus, near Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life. After the customary probation he was ordained priest by the patriarch of Jerusalem. In his last years he travelled through Syria contending against the iconoclasts, and in the same cause he visited Constantinople at the imminent risk of his life during the reign of Constantino Copronymus. The date of his death is uncertain ; the last notice of him is in 754. Damascenus is a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Church, his festival being observed in the former on 29th November and 4th December, and in the latter on the 6th May. The works of Damascenus give him a foremost place
among the theologians of the early Eastern Church, and,