12/4/2017 Legal remedy - Wikipedia

Legal remedy
A legal remedy, also judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the
exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will.

In common law jurisdictions and mixed civil-common law jurisdictions, the law of remedies distinguishes between a legal
remedy (e.g. a specific amount of monetary damages) and an equitable remedy (e.g. injunctive relief or specific
performance). Another type of remedy available in these systems is declaratory relief, where a court determines the rights
of the parties to an action without awarding damages or ordering equitable relief.

In English and American jurisprudence, there is a legal maxim (albeit one sometimes honored in the breach) that for
every right, there is a remedy; where there is no remedy, there is no right. That is, lawmakers claim to provide
appropriate remedies to protect rights. This legal maxim was first enunciated by William Blackstone: "It is a settled and
invariable principle in the laws of England, that every right when with-held must have a remedy, and every injury its
proper redress."[1][2]

Contents
1 Types in common law systems
2 Case-by-case versus announced
3 Examples
4 Categories
5 References

Types in common law systems

There are three crucial categories of remedies in common law system. One is from the law courts of England, and is seen
in the form of a payment of money to the victim. This payment is commonly referred to as damages. Compensatory
damages compensate an injured victim or plaintiff, and punitive damages punish someone who because of fraud or
intentional conduct, is deemed to deserve punishment. Punitive damages serve the function in civil law that fines do in
criminal law.

The second category of remedy comes from the equitable jurisdiction developed in the English Court of Chancery and
Court of Exchequer. The injunction is a type of equitable remedy,[3] as is specific performance, in which someone who
enters into a contract is forced to perform whatever promise has been reneged upon. Two additional equitable remedies
are the equitable lien and the constructive trust.

The third broad group is declaratory remedies. Common examples are the declaratory judgment and the action to quiet
title, and these remedies usually involve a court's determination of how the law applies to particular facts without any
command to the parties.[4] Courts give declaratory remedies about many different kinds of questions, including whether a
person has a legal status, who the owner of a property is, whether a statute has a particular meaning, or what the rights are
under a contract.[4]

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While those are the three basic categories of remedies in common law, there are also a handful of others (such as
reformation and rescission, both dealing with contracts whose terms need to be rewritten or undone).

Case-by-case versus announced

Remedies can be, and in American law usually are, determined case by case, and take into account many different facts
including the amount of harm caused to the victim. Remedies can also be determined in advance for an entire class of
cases. For example, there can be a fixed fine for all violations of a legal rule, regardless of how much harm was caused in
the particular case.[5]

Examples
Damages, which may include:

Compensatory damages
Punitive damages
Incidental damages
Liquidated damages
Nominal damages
Coercive relief

Specific performance
Injunctions
Restitution
Account of profits

Categories
Adequate remedy
Civil remedy
Cumulative remedy
Civil and political rights
Election of remedies
Equity
Equitable remedy
Extraordinary remedy
Habeas corpus
Joinder of remedies
Provisional remedy
Remedy over

References
1. 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 23
2. See also Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 162–163 (1803).
3. Douglas Laycock, The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule (https://books.google.com/books?id=Sahq0wmHRAYC&pri
ntsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false) (Oxford Univ. Press 1991).
4. Bray, Samuel L. (2010). "Preventive Adjudication". University of Chicago Law Review. 77: 1275, 1281.
SSRN 1483859 (https://ssrn.com/abstract=1483859)  .

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5. Bray, Samuel L. (2012). "Announcing Remedies". Cornell Law Review. 97. SSRN 1967184 (https://ssrn.com/abstract
=1967184)  .

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