In this paper, we propose a new method for topology optimization with local stress constraints. In this method, material in which a stress constraint is violated is considered as damaged. Since damaged material will contribute less to the overall performance of the structure, the optimizer will promote a design with a minimal amount of damaged material. We tested the method on several benchmark problems, and the results show that the method is a viable alternative for conventional stress-based approaches based on constraint relaxation followed by constraint aggregation.