from
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, torts. Those damages or those losses which arise not
from the immediate act of the party, but in consequence of such act; as if a
man throw a log into the public streets, and another fall upon it and become
injured by the fall or if a man should erect a dam over his own ground, and
by that means overflow his neighbor's, to his injury.
2. The form of action to be instituted for consequential damages caused
without force, is by action on the case. 3 East, 602; 1 Stran. 636; 5 T. R.
649; 5 Vin. Ab. 403; 1 Chit. Pl. 127 Kames on Eq. 71; 3 Bouv. Inst. n. 3484,
et seq. Vide Immediate.