Compensatory Remedies in UK Law

Exemplary damages or punitive damages, the terms are synonymous, stand apart from awards of compensatory damages. They are additional to an award which is intended to compensate a plaintiff fully for the loss he has suffered, both pecuniary and non-pecuniary. They are intended to punish and deter.

Punishment is a function par excellence of the criminal law, rather than the civil law. But in Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129 the House recognised that there are circumstances where, generally speaking, the conduct is not criminal and an award of exemplary damages would serve a useful purpose in vindicating the strength of the law.

From time to time cases do arise where awards of compensatory damages are perceived as inadequate to achieve a just result between the parties. On occasion conscious wrongdoing by a defendant is so outrageous, his disregard of the plaintiff's rights so contumelious, that something more is needed to show that the law will not tolerate such behaviour. Without an award of exemplary damages, justice will not have been done.

In my opinion the power to award exemplary damages in such cases serves to uphold and vindicate the rule of law because it makes clear that the courts will not tolerate such conduct. It serves to deter such actions in future as such awards will bring home to officers in command of individual units that discipline must be maintained at all times.

It is now generally recognised that an award of aggravated damages is essentially compensatory in nature, notwithstanding the fact that it may have a punitive effect by increasing the overall amount the defendant is ordered to pay.

There undoubtedly are strong arguments of principle in favour of limiting the application of an avowedly punitive award to those who are personally at fault, who, in all but a tiny minority of cases brought against the police, could confidently be expected not to include the chief constable.

Before a court can interfere it must be shown that the judge has either erred in principle in his approach, or has left out of account, or taken into account, some feature that he should, or should not, have considered, or that his decision is wholly wrong, because the court is forced to the conclusion that he has not balanced the various factors fairly in the scale.