Remedies
Fall 2010
Lillard
ROLE OF REMEDIES
-remedy – anything a court can do for a litigant who has been wronged or is about to be wronged
-2 most common: judgments that Ps are entitled to collect sums of money from Ds and orders to Ds to refrain from their wrongful conduct or to undo its consequences.
-court decides whether the litigant has been wronged under substantive law; conducts its inquiry in accordance w/procedural law. law of remedies falls somewhere between substance and procedure, distinct from both but overlapping w/both
CLASSIFYING REMEDIES
-most important categories:
a. Compensatory: compensate plaintiffs for the harm they have suffered. Most important compensatory remedy is compensatory damages – a sum of money designed to make P as well off as he would’ve been if he never had been wronged.
b. Preventative: prevents harms before it happens through:
1. Coercive remedies: most important is the injunction.
-injunction is order from court to litigants ordering them to do or refrain from doing some specific thing
-specific performance decree, ordering Ds to perform their K, is a specialized form of injunction
-it’s the direct order and potential for punishing disobedience that distinguish coercive remedies from declaratory remedies.
2. Declaratory remedies: resolves disputes about parties’ rights, but don’t end in a direct order to D
-prevent harm to litigants by resolving uncertainty about their rights before either side has been harmed by erroneously relying on its own view of the matter
-most important declaratory remedy is the declaratory judgment, but also older remedies, e.g. bills to quiet title and cancellation of instruments.
c. Restitutionary: restores to P all that D gained at P’s expense
*sometimes, restitution and compensation are identical
-in most ambitious applications, restitutionary remedies award P the profits D earned by conscious wrongdoing, even if profits exceed P’s damages
-restitution has traditionally been administered through variety of separate remedial devices, such as quasi-K, constructive trust, equitable lien, accounting for profits, rescission, and subrogation. (these are pretty much different labels for the same thing)
d. Punitive: intended to punish wrongdoers.
-might question whether punitive remedies are remedies at all; they don’t remedy anything in usual sense of correcting, repairing, or fixing
e. Ancillary: aid other remedies: fees and costs
SUBSTITUTIONARY AND SPECIFIC REMEDIES
-substitututionary remedies – P suffers harm and receives a sum of money
-include: compensatory damages, attorney fees, restitution of money value of D’s gain, and punitive damages
-specific remedies – aspire to prevent harm, or undo it, rather than let it happen and compensate for it. Seek to prevent harm to P, repair harm in kind, or restore specific thing that P lost.
-include: injunctions, specific performance of Ks, restitution of specific property, and restitution of a specific sum of money
-2 hallmarks of substitutionary relief. 1: P who recovers damages gets neither what he started with (his money) nor what was promised (goods conforming to the K. instead, gets defective goods and money to compensate for the defect). 2: sum of money he receives is based on fact finder’s valuation of his loss.
LEGAL AND EQUITABLE REMEDIES
-damages are most important legal remedy; in general, compensatory and punitive remedies are legal. Injunctions and specific performance decrees are most important equitable remedies; some of the specialized coercive remedies (mandamus, prohibition…) are legal.
-declaratory judgments not classified either way
-some restitutionary remedies are legal, some equitable, some both.
PAYING FOR HARM: COMPENSATORY DAMAGES
A. BASIC PRINCIPLE: RESTORING P TO HIS RIGHTFUL POSITION
US v. Hatahley
A. Facts
a. U.S. rounded up Ps’ unique horses and made glue without giving Ps proper notice. The district court awarded damages for each horse and uniform amounts for Ps’ pain + suffering.
c. Court of Appeals sent it back to a different district judge for a more precise award of damages.
d. Ps live in a barter economy, but unique horses can be traded for other animals with a market value.
B. Why the Court of Appeals remanded—question is what to do on remand.
a. The Court of Appeals thought the judge wasn’t using market value, so the standard of putting the P in their RIGHTFUL POSITIONS wasn’t met.
b. The Court of Appeals also says the judge should not have homogenized Ps’ EMOTIONAL DISTRESS.
1. But isn’t it i
F. ONE-SATISFACTION RULE: P can only recover for each item of damage once, even if he has multiple legal theories against multiple defendants.
a. PRO TANTO: nonsettling Δs get $ for $ credit for settlement toward damages
b. PROPORTIONATE FAULT: each Δ is liable for the % of damages matching her % of fault
***Goal of COMPENSATORY DAMAGES is to restore P to her RIGHTFUL POSITION***
-value of animals –
-trial court came up with the number $395
-looked at trading value
-10th cir said that it should’ve been replacement value of the animal w/that training
-said that you should look at the availability of like animals in the vicinity
-but how do you decide when it’s enough like it?
àsufficiency of a replacement is something that comes up a lot
-could get an appraiser…
-here: valuation date – date that they were taken. And court ignores the time it will take you to train the horse (only reason why they’d to that, is that it’s easier)
-loss of use –premised on idea that they weren’t replaced the day they were taken.
– judge said 50% of decline he was attributing to the govt. and 50% to other causes
-causation issue – P’s burden to show that xyz was the gov’t fault. But also a mitigation issue of the govt saying you had the responsibility to try to minimize your loss (of animals wandering off)
-consequential harm – set up hypo but-for world… but for the taking/etc, what would’ve occurred? And compare to actual world
-if did some sort of trend line… you’d have to ask why they didn’t replace the horses and stuff they lost for other causes
-pain and suffering – ?
-3 steps in valuation :
-what are you valuing? Why?
-what’s standard you’re going to use to value?
-gathering evidence to apply the standard – coming up with a value based on the evidence
