In an action for damages for special damages for trespass, special dam-ages must be pleaded and strictly proved, the value pleaded being normally a reflection of the prevailing market prices. The vital difference between a claim for compensation under the Land Use Act and compensation in trespass Is that general damages is only claimable in trespass.
— Obaseki, JSC. Foreign Finance Corp. v Lagos State Devt. & Pty. Corp. & Ors. (1991) – SC. 9/1988
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To sue for specific performance is to assume that a contract is still subsisting and therefore to insist that it should be performed. That will mean that the plaintiff will not want it repudiated unless for any other reason the court was unable to aid him to enforce specific performance of it. He may then fall back for remedy at common law for damages. Specific performance is a discretionary remedy. This does not mean that it will be granted or withheld arbitrarily; the discretion is a judicial discretion and is exercised on well settled principles. It means that in an action for the specific performance of a contract of the class usually enforced, the court may take into account circumstances which could not be taken into account in an action for damages for breach of contract, such as the conduct of the plaintiff, or the hardship which an order for specific performance will inflict on the defendant.
– Ba’Aba JCA. Enejo v. Nasir (2006)
In the American case of Warfield Natural Gas Co. v. Wright 54 SW 2nd it was held that where pain is claimed as an element of damages the impossibility of definitely measuring the damages by a money standard is no ground for denying pecuniary relief.
The tort of negligence is a civil wrong consisting of breach of a legal duty to care which results in damage. Thus, three things must be proved before the liability to pay damages for tort of negligence and these are:- (a) That the defendant owned the plaintiff a duty to exercise due care. (b) That the defendant failed to exercise due care, and (c) That the defendant’s failure was the cause of the injury in the proper sense of that term.
– Shuaibu JCA. Diamond Bank v. Mocok (2019)
In Mertens v. Home Freeholds Company (1921),2 K.B. 526, where the Court approved the law on this point as stated in an earlier edition of Hudson. In that case the contractor had undertaken to build to the roofing and the Court held:- The proper measure of damages was what it cost the plaintiff to complete the house substantially as it was originally intended and in a reasonable manner at the earliest moment he was allowed to proceed with the work, less any amount which would have been due and payable by the defendant to the plaintiff, had the defendant completed the house to the roofing at the time agreed by the terms of the contract.
As such is the position, there is now no need for this court or the Court of Appeal to look at an issue of damages as if it were a sacred cow reserved for the court of trial. The correct approach ought to be that unless an issue of credibility of witnesses as to damages arises in the proceedings, the appellate court ought, on entering or affirming a judgment in favour of the plaintiff, to assess and award damages to which he is entitled.
– Pats-Acholonu, JSC. C & C Constr. v. Okhai (2003) – SC.8/1999
It is no longer a matter for contention that the principle in regard to the assessment and award of special damages is different from that of general damages: see Ijebu-Ode Local Govemment v.Adedeji Balogun & Co (1991) 1NWLR(Pt.166) 136 at p. 158; Eseigbe v.Agholor (1993) 9 NWLR (Pt.316) 128 at p. 145. In the former, damages are specially pleaded, strictly proved and accordingly awarded; in the latter, they are averred, if necessary under specific heads of claim, presumed in law to be the direct and natural consequence of the act complained of and awarded at large as a jury question.
— Uwaifo, JSC. Rockonoh v. NTP (2001) – SC.71/1995
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