Nominal damages are a token award, often a specific small amount, granted when a court or jury finds that a legal wrong occurred but the plaintiff failed to prove a substantial actual injury flowing from it. The award vindicates the violated right rather than compensating a measurable loss, and it typically establishes the plaintiff as the prevailing party for procedural purposes.

Nominal damages matter beyond their face value because prevailing-party status can unlock statutory attorney fee-shifting, injunctive relief, or a basis for punitive damages in some jurisdictions, even where the compensatory recovery is trivial. Courts have addressed whether a nominal damages award alone can support a substantial fee award, and outcomes vary by jurisdiction and statute.

Juricratic flags a nominal-damages outcome as a distinct branch terminus in a simulated case tree rather than folding it into a zero-recovery outcome, because its downstream effects on fee-shifting and prevailing-party status can matter as much as the underlying dollar figure.

Civil rights and constitutional tort plaintiffs pursue nominal damages when actual monetary loss is difficult to prove but the underlying rights violation is clear, using a favorable liability finding, even with a nominal award, to establish prevailing-party status for a fee petition or to obtain injunctive relief.