28.4.3 Measure of Damages.

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

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...