General damages

General damages are such as the law implies to have accrued from the act of a tort-feasor. To call a man a thief, or commit an assault and battery upon his person, are examples of this kind. In the first case the law presumes that calling a man a thief must be injurious to him, with showing that it is so and in the latter case, the law imples that his person has been more or less deteriorated, and that the injured party is not required to specify what inury he has sustained, nor to prove it.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.