Money awarded to repay a person for actual harm caused by someone else.

"Repay" is the key idea. Compensatory damages are meant to make an injured person whole, at least financially, after a loss. "Actual harm" includes both measurable costs and human losses that do not come with neat receipts. That usually means economic damages such as medical bills, lost wages, future treatment, and property damage, plus noneconomic damages such as pain, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life. The point is compensation, not punishment - that is a different category entirely, called punitive damages.

In practice, this is the core of most injury claims. If a crash, fall, or other accident leaves someone with a stack of bills, missed work, and lasting symptoms, compensatory damages are the dollars used to value those losses. The strength of the claim often turns on proof: treatment records, wage information, repair estimates, and credible evidence showing how the injury changed daily life. Deep potholes after Maine's frost heaves, or a collision on a long empty stretch of road in Aroostook County, may explain how a crash happened, but the damages question asks what it cost the injured person afterward.

In Maine, fault can reduce recovery under the Maine comparative negligence law, 14 M.R.S. § 156 (1965). If the injured person is found partly responsible, compensatory damages are reduced by that percentage, and recovery is barred if that person is equally at fault or more at fault than the other side.