28.4.3 Measure of Damages.

JurisdictionArizona

28.4.3 Measure of Damages. Even when there has been no showing of damage to the chattel, a plaintiff may recover nominal damages for mere dispossession of the chattel by the defendant.20 However, in order to recover anything beyond nominal damages, the plaintiff must show actual, quantifiable damage or a substantial dispossession to the chattel.21

In cases in which the trespass is substantial (i.e., more than nominal) a plaintiff may recover the “full amount of the damage or other impairment to the chattel. He is not confined to a recovery for the harm done to his possessory interest in it.”22 If the plaintiff’s theory of recovery is that he or she was deprived of the chattel for a substantial period of time, “the time must be so substantial that it is possible to estimate the loss that is caused.”23

For example, in Koepnick , a customer who was detained on suspicion of shoplifting was unable to recover damages from the defendant department store for trespass...

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