Loss, hurt, or harm without injury in the legal sense, that Is, without such an invasion of rights as is redressihle by an action. A loss which does not give rise to an action of damages against the person causing it; as where a person blocks up the windows of a new house overlooking his land, or injures a person’s trade by setting up an establishment of the same kind in the neighborhood. Damnum sine injuria esse potest. Lofft. 112. There may be damage or injury inflicted without any act of injustice.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
A loss or damage without injury. 2. There are cases when the act of one man may cause a damage or loss to another, and for which the latter has no remedy; he is then said to have received damnum absque injuria; as, for example, if a man should set up a school in the neighborhood of another school, and, by that means, deprive the former of its patronage; or if a man should build a mill along side of another, and consequently reduce his custom. 9 Pick. 59, 528. 3. Another instance may be given of the case where a man using proper care and diligence, while excavating for a foundation, injures the adjoining house, owing to the unsuitable materials used in such house; here the injury is damnum absque injuria. 4. When a man slanders another by publishing the truth, the person slandered is said to have sustained loss without injury.