what are compensatory damages 
compensatory damages are money awarded to an injured party that compensate for damages injury or another incurred loss compensatory damages are awarded in civil court cases where loss has occurred as a result of the negligence or unlawful conduct of another party to receive compensatory damages the plaintiff has to prove that a loss occurred and that it was attributable to the defendant the plaintiff must also be able to quantify the amount of loss in the eyes of the jury or judge actual damages are intended to provide the monetary amount necessary to replace what was lost and nothing more usually compensatory damages are awarded in civil court cases in order to compensate for damages injury or another incurred loss as we ll explore further in the article they are different from punitive and treble damages compensatory damages can be classified into two types actual and general examples of actual compensatory damagesto be awarded actual compensatory damages the plaintiff must prove that losses suffered equate to a defined monetary value also states might mandate collateral source rules csrs that prevent the reduction of awarded damages due to payment recovered from a third party examples of general compensatory damagesgeneral compensatory damages meanwhile include estimates of loss not involving actual monetary expenditure some courts use the multiplier method which calculates general damages by multiplying the sum total of one s actual damages by a number that signifies the seriousness of the injury in other jurisdictions courts will use the per diem method which attaches a dollar value to each day a plaintiff suffers and adds the value of all those days together in some cases a court will use a hybrid of these two methods to calculate general compensatory damages these general compensatory damages include compensatory damages are typically awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits usually for medical bills hospital bills rehabilitation expenses and compensation for lost earnings some compensatory damages can be difficult to assess for example the value of lost wages will be much higher for a more affluent member of society versus someone who is poor or retired 