Short answer. No. Article 2223 provides that the adjudication of nominal damages shall preclude further contest upon the right involved and all accessory questions, as between the parties to the suit or their respective heirs and assigns. The award closes the matter rather than leaving it open.

What the law says

The adjudication of nominal damages shall preclude further contest upon the right involved and all accessory questions, as between the parties to the suit, or their respective heirs and assigns.

Civil Code, Article 2223 — Nominal Damages Exclude Other Damages. Read the full provision →

Nominal damages are not a small compensation

They are a different thing altogether. Article 2221 says they are adjudicated so that a right of the plaintiff which has been violated or invaded may be vindicated or recognised, and not for the purpose of indemnifying the plaintiff for any loss suffered by him. An award of nominal damages is therefore the court saying that your right was real and was infringed, while declining to attach a compensatory figure to it. Reading it as a down payment on a larger recovery to come misunderstands what has actually been decided.

Why the next article shuts the door

The adjudication shall preclude further contest upon the right involved and all accessory questions, and it does so as between the parties to the suit, or their respective heirs and assigns. Two features repay attention. It closes down not only the main right but the questions hanging off it, and it binds successors, so a second action brought by an heir, or by someone who takes an assignment of the claim, runs into the same wall. The judgment travels with the right rather than with the person.

So the loss has to be claimed in that case

Not saved for a later one. If you have a pecuniary loss, prove it there: Article 2199 gives adequate compensation for such loss as has been duly proved. If the loss is real but its amount cannot be fixed with certainty from the nature of the case, Article 2224 allows temperate or moderate damages, more than nominal and less than compensatory, and Article 2225 requires them to be reasonable. Nominal damages are what is left when neither of those has been established.

If the award has already been made

And you believe an actual loss was proved and overlooked, that is a complaint about the decision, to be raised through the remedies available within the case itself rather than by starting again. Bring the judgment, the pleadings and the evidence you filed to a lawyer promptly, because the routes for questioning a decision run on short periods and they do not wait. If you are still at the pleading stage, the lesson is simpler: plead the loss and prove it now.

Cases citing this provision

These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.