Damages

The MBE rarely asks “are there damages?” outright; it tests the doctrines that shrink the award. Watch for a plaintiff who skips physical therapy or refuses reasonable recommended treatment — that triggers the avoidable-consequences (mitigation) rule, which bars only the incremental harm reasonable effort could have avoided, not the whole claim (reasonableness of a refusal is a jury question). Another favorite is the collateral-source rule: payments from the plaintiff’s own insurer don’t reduce the defendant’s liability, so the choice deducting them is wrong (many states have modified this by statute). The eggshell-skull plaintiff is the recurring trap — you take the victim as you find them, so an unforeseeable extent of harm is fully recoverable, even though proximate cause limits unforeseeable types of harm.

Don’t confuse damages with causation: causation links the act to the injury, while damages measures it — and a foreseeable injury can still yield reduced recovery through mitigation. The negligence-specific trap: unlike most intentional torts, negligence allows no nominal damages, so without actual loss the prima facie case fails.