Example: A plaintiff claims the tortfeasor's failure to deliver a shipment not only hurt his current sales, but also customer satisfaction and thus future sales as well.
[1] For example, if the aforementioned small business owner claims that the tortfeasor's claims hurt his customer satisfaction, and proved it by showing security camera footage of one of his most frequent customers being so upset over the business' inability to deliver the product that he ordered that he stormed out of the store and vowed to never come back, then the business owner might have something.
Ballentine's Law Dictionary[2] has been used to define Speculative Damages in court cases such as Hawkinson v Johnston and Murphy v Hobbs: 1.
Damages are not speculative merely because they cannot be computed with mathematical exactness, if under the evidence they are capable of reasonable approximation.
"So long as the jury are considering the material pecuniary injury, and the physical pain, their inquiry relates to what are termed actual damages; but when authorized by a vicious intent of the wrongdoer, they turn to the realm of mental anguish, public indignity, wounded sensibility, etc., the damages may more appropriately be described as presumptive, speculative, or imaginary."