Compensation for Material Damage in Tort Liability Under the Jordanian Civil Code
When a harmful act destroys property or injures a person, the material damage does not become an awarded sum merely because it occurred; what reaches the injured party at the end of the lawsuit is the amount that was proven and assessed through evidence, not the amount they actually incurred. Jordanian Civil Code No. 43 of 1976 and its amendments regulates the provisions on the harmful act in Articles 256 et seq., and bases compensation in them on the damage, influenced by the rules of Islamic jurisprudence. The distance between the damage suffered and the damage awarded is usually a distance of proof and assessment, and it is there that the specialist lawyer works from the first days after the incident.
1. The Basis of Liability for the Harmful Act
Tort liability, or what the Jordanian Civil Code calls the "harmful act", is one of the most important sources of obligation: causing damage to another gives rise to an obligation to compensate for it whenever the conditions of liability are met. Article 256 provides that:
"Every harm to another obliges its doer, even if not of discerning age, to compensate for the damage."
Compensation is therefore owed whenever harm to another occurs, even if the person who committed the act lacks discernment. This is a point the lawyer pauses on early, since it opens the door to a claim in situations the injured party believes are closed to them.
Article 257 also provides that harm is caused either directly or by causation; if it is caused directly, compensation is owed, but if it is caused by causation, there must be wrongdoing, intent, or an act that leads to the damage. Characterizing the incident as direct harm or harm by causation is not a theoretical detail, since what must be proven before the court changes accordingly, and it is among the first things the lawyer looks at when reviewing the file.
2. The Concept and Limits of Material Damage
Material damage means any damage that affects a financial interest or a financial right of the injured party, or that affects their body or health in a way that results in financial loss. It includes infringement of the right of ownership, use or easement, destruction of property or reduction of its value or usefulness, and harm to the body and health where it results in expenses or a loss of income or earning capacity.
It is not enough for damage to have occurred in the factual sense; the infringement must target a lawful interest that the law protects. Damage to an unlawful interest, or to one contrary to public policy or public morals, is not compensable.
This article is limited to material damage within the scope of the harmful act. The other aspects of civil compensation, from moral and agreed compensation to contractual liability and limitation periods, are covered in the article civil compensation under Jordanian law. The lawyer evaluates these aspects together when building the claim, because confining the file to a single item may leave parts of the right outside the lawsuit.
3. Forms of Material Damage
In applications of the harmful act, material damage divides into two forms, each with its own logic of assessment and proof.
The first form: infringement of property. Examples include total or partial destruction of property, its usurpation or depriving its owner of its use, reducing its value or usefulness, infringement of financial rights and of intellectual and industrial property rights, and losses arising from unfair competition where its legal conditions are met.
The second form: infringement of a person's physical integrity. The act may affect a person's body or health and result in financial damage: the costs of treatment and medication, the costs of operations and rehabilitation, loss of income, reduced earning capacity, temporary or permanent inability to work, and loss of the financial support the injured party, or those they support, used to receive.
The difference between the two forms shows in practice in the evidence that must be gathered and in the source on which the assessment relies:
| Point of comparison | Infringement of property | Infringement of a person's physical integrity |
|---|---|---|
| Subject of the damage | Property owned by the injured party or a financial right of theirs | The injured party's body or health, and the financial loss arising from them |
| Elements of assessment | The value of the property or the reduction in its value and usefulness, and the related lost profit | Costs of treatment and rehabilitation, loss of income, reduced earning capacity, and disability |
| Evidence of proof | Financial documents, invoices, title documents and technical expert reports | Medical reports, medical committee decisions, income records and expense documents |
| Who assesses it | The trial court, relying on court-appointed technical expertise | The trial court, relying on medical expertise and the established disability percentage |
| Effect of weak documentation | An assessment below the real loss, or rejection of the item as unproven | Compensation limited to the medically established amount, without the rest of the financial effect |
In bodily injuries arising from vehicle accidents, these elements intersect with the provisions on compulsory insurance coverage for bodily injuries, an intersection that changes the order of the claim and the party it is directed against. Allocating the items between the two forms, and determining what falls under actual loss and what falls under lost profit, is itself a legal point that merits consultation before the statement of claim is drafted.
4. The Standard for Assessing Compensation in Article 266
The Jordanian legislature set the rule for assessing compensation in Article 266 of the Civil Code, which provides:
"Compensation shall in all cases be assessed according to the damage suffered by the injured party and the profit lost, provided that this is a natural result of the harmful act."
The aim of compensation is to redress the real damage, not to enrich the injured party. It is therefore not limited to the actual loss but also covers the lost profit, to the extent its connection to the harmful act is proven.
The "lost profit" item is the one most often lost in claims prepared in a hurry. It does not appear on a ready-made invoice the way repair or treatment costs do; it requires a financial construction supported by income records and technical expertise. The lawyer identifies and documents this item before fixing the value of the claim, because once the claim is limited to an amount lower than the facts can support, anything above it falls outside what the court can award.
Practical note: The amount of compensation is not a fixed figure derived from a general rule or from a similar case, since it changes with the evidence submitted, the established disability percentage and the conclusions of the court-appointed expert report. The lawyer re-evaluates the value of the claim whenever a new element of proof enters the file, and this is a question that should not be decided on a preliminary estimate without reviewing the documents or consulting a specialist lawyer.
5. The Conditions for Material Damage That Gives Rise to Compensation
For material damage to support a claim for compensation, conditions must be met that the lawyer examines item by item before starting the lawsuit.
The infringement must target a lawful financial right or interest. Such as infringement of the right of ownership, destruction of property owned by another, or an injury that led to treatment costs or loss of income. An unlawful interest is not protected by law, and damage resulting from it cannot form the basis of a claim.
The damage must be certain. Whether it has already occurred or is future damage certain to occur. Speculative damage, where it is not known whether it will occur, is in principle not compensable before it materializes.
The damage must be personal. In principle, the damage must have affected the injured party themselves, whether a natural or a legal person; a relationship of kinship or friendship is not enough to give someone else the right to claim, unless they too have suffered personal damage that meets the conditions. This is the basis of what is known as consequential (reflected) damage, such as the death of a person who supported their family, whose members lose their source of support: compensation here does not arise from the family relationship alone, but from the personal damage suffered by the person to whom the damage was passed on.
6. Future Damage and the Manner of Paying Compensation
It is not required that the damage have occurred in full when the lawsuit is filed. If it is proven that the injury will inevitably lead to a future financial loss or a permanent reduction in earning capacity, this is included in the compensable damage once its connection to the harmful act is proven.
The legislature addressed the situation in which the extent of compensation cannot be determined definitively in Article 268, which allows the court to reserve for the injured party the right to request a review of the assessment within a specified period. This provision is often overlooked in claims prepared without expertise, and the injured party ends up with a final judgment based on a medical condition that has not yet stabilized.
Compensation need not be a sum paid in a single installment. Article 269(1) provides that:
"Compensation may be paid in installments, and it may also be a periodic income, and in both cases the debtor may be required to provide security assessed by the court."
Which form best suits the injured party's situation, and the effect of each form on the guarantees of later collection, are among the questions the lawyer weighs when drafting the requests.
7. Speculative Damage and Loss of Chance
A distinction must be drawn between speculative damage and loss of chance. The first has not yet materialized and it is not known for certain whether it will occur; in the second, the damage has materialized through the loss of a real chance that could have led to a benefit or profit, as a result of the harmful act. Awarding compensation for loss of chance does not mean awarding the full profit the injured party hoped for; it is assessed according to the value of the chance and how likely it was that the hoped-for result would materialize.
The Jordanian courts have adopted this concept in some applications concerning professional liability, including what was stated in Court of Cassation (civil) Judgment No. 768 of 1982 concerning a lawyer's failure to observe legal deadlines and the resulting liability for the actual damage caused by that failure. Building a claim on this basis requires a precise presentation of how serious the chance was and how likely it was, a technical presentation that separates a claim that is accepted from one rejected as unproven.
8. Causation and the External Cause
Entitlement to compensation requires a causal link between the harmful act and the damage, which Article 266 expresses by requiring that the damage and the lost profit be a natural result of the act. It is not enough to prove that damage occurred; it must be proven that it resulted from the act attributed to the liable person, and that the causal link was not broken by an external cause. The Jordanian Civil Code regulates this question in Article 261 on damage arising from an external cause for which the doer is not responsible, such as force majeure or a sudden accident according to their legal conditions.
Most defenses in harmful-act lawsuits concentrate on this condition: the defendant seeks to break or divide the link, while the injured party's lawyer works to establish it through technical reports and mutually supporting circumstantial evidence. Do not make any admission or statement about the circumstances of the incident before presenting the file to a specialist lawyer, since a single sentence in an initial report may later be read as a contribution by the injured party to causing the damage.
9. The Burden of Proving the Amount of Damage
The assessment of compensation is tied to the damage established in the lawsuit, and to the evidence the parties submit to prove the amount of the loss and the lost profit: invoices, medical reports, technical expert reports, financial documents and income records.
This is where injured parties lose the most. The real damage may be large, but the court awards only what has been proven before it, so part of the actual loss becomes unrecoverable simply because it was not documented at the time. For this reason, the lawyer's work begins before the lawsuit is filed: gathering the documents while they can still be obtained, requesting the appropriate expertise, and organizing the items so that each one is matched by supporting evidence. Do not sign any release or settlement before showing it to a specialist lawyer, since a signed release closes the door to claims for items the injured party may not even have realized existed.
10. Frequently Asked Questions
Is compensation for material damage limited to the actual loss?
No. Article 266 of the Jordanian Civil Code assesses compensation according to the damage suffered by the injured party and the profit they lost, provided this is a natural result of the harmful act. The lost-profit item is the one most prone to neglect, and it requires a financial construction that the lawyer prepares on the basis of documents and records.
Is compensation owed for damage that has not yet occurred?
Yes, if it is future damage certain to occur, such as a permanent reduction in earning capacity proven to result from the injury. Uncertain speculative damage is in principle not compensable before it materializes.
What is the difference between speculative damage and loss of chance?
Speculative damage has not yet materialized and it is not known for certain whether it will occur, while in loss of chance the damage has materialized through the loss of a real chance that could have led to a benefit or profit. Compensation for it is assessed by the value of the chance itself and how likely it was to materialize, not by the full hoped-for profit.
Can the injured party's relatives claim compensation for their own damage?
The claim does not rest on kinship alone, but on personal damage suffered by the person to whom the damage was passed on, such as the loss of support on the death of a person who supported their family. Determining who has standing to claim and the amount of damage proven for them is a question the lawyer settles after reviewing the file.
Can compensation be awarded in installments?
Yes. Article 269(1) of the Jordanian Civil Code allows compensation to be paid in installments or as a periodic income, and the debtor may be required to provide security assessed by the court.
Is it enough to claim a lump sum without itemizing the heads of damage?
A lump-sum claim not supported by items and evidence weakens the injured party's position, because the court assesses only what has been proven before it. Organizing the items and tying each one to its evidence is among the most important things the lawyer does before drafting the statement of claim.
Legal Consultation
Material damage lawsuits are among the civil disputes most affected by the quality and timing of documentation: on the injured party's side, part of a real loss may be lost simply because it was not documented at the time, and on the defendant's side, they may bear compensation that exceeds the natural result of their act if the defenses concerning causation and the amount of damage are not raised in time. Because the assessment changes as the evidence and expertise change, an early evaluation of the file sets the ceiling of what can be achieved later. For those seeking a professional assessment of the heads of damage and the course of the claim, the firm offers specialist legal consultation in commercial law and financial rights, drawing on an understanding of related areas such as the public right and the private right under Jordanian law, the legal framework for insurance in Jordan and the difference between personal and real actions under Jordanian law. You can contact Alabwini Law Firm & Legal Consultancy to review the file and discuss the available options.
