Damages, damages, damages!
Before filing a lawsuit, always ask yourself “what are my damages?”
In other words, can you say with specificity how much you’ve lost (financially) due to the defendant’s actions?
Here’s an example of a case where the plaintiff failed to show damages and, consequently, had his lawsuit dismissed by the court.
According to court documents, in 2010 an engineer asked a Northeastern University professor to help him test the engineer’s patented idea for harvesting clean, renewable energy.
The professor agreed and the parties signed a “memorandum of understanding.”
For a year and a half the professor tested the engineer’s patent.
After concluding his research, the professor published an academic article on the patent.
The engineer thought that the article “misrepresented the true and accurate research results” and made his clean-energy ideas seem “inoperable and worthless.”
About seven years after the article’s publication, the engineer pitched his patent to Royal Dutch Shell at a “new energy technologies” conference.
Initially the company seemed interested in the engineer’s patent but ultimately decided not to invest in it until “its performance could be demonstrated through testing.”
Shortly thereafter, the engineer filed a lawsuit against the professor and the university in Suffolk Superior Court. The engineer alleged, in part, that the academic article amounted to unfair and deceptive business practices under G.L. c. 93A, Sec. 11.
In his pleadings the engineer apparently failed to
- show that Royal Dutch Shell knew of the troublesome article, and
- specify monetary loss stemming directly from the article.
A superior court judge dismissed the engineer’s case for failing to state a claim per Mass. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).
The engineer appealed and today the Appeals Court upheld the dismissal.
In their slip opinion, the justices write,
the viability of each of the plaintiff’s claims depends on his alleging recoverable damages caused by the defendants’ conduct…The plaintiff has not met this burden, however, as he has not alleged that the publication of Sun’s article caused him any economic harm.
The full text of the decision is attached below.