DAMAGE. — In general, it indicates any diminution of being and of goods, whether material or spiritual (e.g., reputation). It therefore extends also to immaterial things, although its widest and most frequent application is in the realm of material things. For this reason it is often defined as “patrimonial loss.” It can occur either as the loss of goods already possessed (*damnum emergens*), or as the failure to acquire goods not yet possessed but which would otherwise have been acquired (*lucrum cessans*). It is therefore not identical with theft, although sometimes (e.g., in the formulation of the seventh commandment of the Decalogue) the latter term is used to mean any form of damage. Its extent is determined by the difference between what one has and what one would have had if the harmful event had not occurred.
From the moral and juridical points of view, the distinction between just and unjust damage, and between damage imputable to a free agent and damage not imputable to a free agent, is of great importance. Indeed, only unjust damage caused by a free agent obliges that agent to make restitution (see, however, on this point, RESTITUTION).
For a long time, particular interest in Italian law has been aroused by the question of compensation for moral damage, i.e., for the mental suffering and pain unjustly caused. The question was settled in 1930 for damage caused by crimes and in 1942 for damage caused by other causes. Indeed, Article 185 of the Italian Penal Code of 1930 states: “Every crime that has caused patrimonial or non-patrimonial damage obliges the guilty party and those who, according to civil law, must answer for his act, to make compensation”; and Article 2059 of the Civil Code of 1942 states: “Non-patrimonial damage must be compensated only in cases determined by law.” Thus, the correspondence between the two fields, vigorously upheld by many jurists, has been abandoned on this point.