Also known as: resulting harms · consequential harm
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The harm that follows from a wrongful act or condition and that triggers liability, causation analysis, or an award of compensation or damages.
Ridgeway Partners held a servitude over Rachel Ramirez's land to preserve sightlines for filming. New skyscrapers blocked the sightlines decades later. A court terminated the servitude under changed-conditions rules and ordered Ridgeway Partners to pay Rachel Ramirez for the resulting harm to her development plans.
Rowan Russell drove negligently and collided with Regina Robinson's car. Regina Robinson had also driven negligently. The court applied the same causation rules to both parties and found that Regina Robinson's negligence was a substantial factor in the resulting harm to herself.
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Rita Russell published private medical records of Roberto Reyes without consent. Roberto Reyes suffered emotional distress and reputational damage. The court held Rita Russell liable for the resulting harm to Roberto Reyes's privacy interests under the invasion-of-privacy rule.
Rosalind Reed and her spouse chose prayer over medical care for their child despite visible decline. The child died from a treatable condition. Prosecutors charged involuntary manslaughter, focusing on whether the parents' conduct produced the resulting harm required for conviction.
Rhapsody Entertainment invested in a fraudulent scheme run by Radiant Technologies. The investment produced financial losses. The court examined whether those losses constituted resulting harm sufficient to support a private RICO damages claim.
Roberto Reyes murdered Regina Robinson's family member. At sentencing the prosecution introduced evidence of the family's ongoing grief. The Court upheld admission of the evidence because the resulting harm to the victims' survivors is relevant to the capital sentencing decision.
No. Resulting harm includes emotional distress, reputational damage, and economic loss as well as physical injury. The Restatement provisions on privacy and servitudes expressly allow recovery for non-physical harms that flow from the wrongful conduct.
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The same rules that determine whether a defendant's negligence caused harm to others also determine whether a plaintiff's own negligence caused the resulting harm to the plaintiff. This symmetry prevents a plaintiff from recovering when the plaintiff's conduct was a substantial factor in producing the injury.
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A court may condition modification or termination of a servitude on payment of compensation for resulting harm to the beneficiaries when changed conditions make the original purpose impossible to accomplish. The award restores the beneficiaries to the position they would have occupied had the servitude remained enforceable.
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…to nonhomicide crimes, and the Court took care to distinguish those offenses from murder, based on both moral culpability and consequential harm. See id. , at (slip op., at 18). But none of what it said about children—about their distinctive (and transitory) mental traits and environmental vulnerabilities—is crime-specific.…