Lord Holt laid down the important principle that where there is injury in the absence of financial loss (injuria sine damno) the law makes the presumption of damage and that it is sufficient to demonstrate that a right has been infringed.

But from hence it appears that every man, that is to give his vote on the election of members to serve in Parliament, has a several and particular right in his private capacity, as a citizen or burgess.

A right that a man has to give his vote at the election of a person to represent him in Parliament, there to concur to the making of laws, which are to bind his liberty and property, is a most transcendent thing, and of an high nature, and the law takes notice of it as such in divers statutes: as in the statute of 34 & 35 H. 8, c. 13, intitled An Act for Making of Knights and Burgesses within the County and City of Chester; where in the preamble it is said, that whereas the said County Palatine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, excluded, and separated out, and from the King's Court, by reason whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance, and maintenance of the commonwealth of their said county, &c. So that the opinion of the Parliament is, that the want of this privilege occasions great loss and damage.

2, c. 9, an Act to enable the County Palatine of Durham to send knights and burgesses to serve in Parliament, which recites, whereas the inhabitants of the County Palatine of Durham have not hitherto had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses to the High Court of Parliament, &c. The right of voting at the election of burgesses is a thing of the highest importance, and so great a privilege, that it is a great injury to deprive the plaintiff of it.

But we do not deny them their right of examining elections, but we must not be frighted when a matter of property comes before us, by saying it belongs to the Parliament; we must exert the Queen's jurisdiction.

My opinion is founded on the law of England.As far back as 1703, exemplary damages were being recognised as part of the decision in Ashby for misfeasance in public office, where it was accepted that a greater degree of compensatory damages would be appropriate in order to both punish and deter harmful conduct by office holders.

In 1704, on the reversal of the judgment given in the lower court,[3] it was ordered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament that Matthew Ashby could recover his damages as assessed by the jury and was also awarded costs.