Damages and Equity: Professor Lind
Spring 2016
Categorization of remedies:
Substitutionary remedies: give plaintiff money in exchange for an otherwise non-compensable loss.
Specific remedies: give plaintiff the specific item sought.
Substitutionary and specific remedies are not mutually exclusive.
A. Damage Remedies (nominal, statutory, liquidated or compensatory)
Nominal damages: are designed to vindicate plaintiff’s rights by making a legal declaration of those rights and providing plaintiff with “nominal” compensation.
Compensatory damages: are supposed to repay plaintiff for any losses she has suffered, making her whole, in so much as the law is capable of doing so. Compensatory damages are substitutionary and cannot provide an adequate substitute. Compensatory damages are generally designed to compensate plaintiff for a loss.
Statutory damages: are legislative enactments that specify either an amount or a formula for damage recoveries.
Liquidated damages: represent efforts by parties to a contract to specify either an amount or a formula that a court should use in calculating damages.
Liquidated and statutory damages represent efforts to tell courts how much to award or how to calculate a damage award.
B. Coercive Remedies: involve in personam orders that are enforceable through the remedy of “contempt of court.” “Contempt of court” is an extremely powerful remedy by which a court can impose jail sentences or fines in order to punish a defendant for violating a court order, to coerce defendant to obey the order, or to compensate plaintiff for violation of the order.
C. Declaratory Remedies: are commonly available at both the federal level and the state level. The function of declaratory relief is to provide a judicial declaration regarding the rights, obligation, or responsibility of the parties relating to a particular situation declaration that plaintiff’s picketing activities are protected b y free speech principles and that an ordinance that purports to restrict those activities is unconstitutional. No money is awarded, no orders are issued; the court simply declares one party’s position to be correct under the law.
D. Restitutionary Remedies: Restitution is a remedy that is imposed to prevent unjust enrichment. It awards a plaintiff the amount that defendant gained as a result of the wrong, not the amount that the plaintiff lost (as in damages).
Ejectment and replevin: are specific remedies that give plaintiff specific property to which she is entitled.
Quasi-contract: is a substitutionary remedy that gives plaintiff a monetary equivalent for a benefit conferred on defendant.
E. Legal versus Equitable Remedies:
Equitable remedies have been regarded as in personam remedies – involving direct order to a defendant to engage or refrain from engaging in a particular act – and have been enforced through the remedy of contempt.
Legal remedies do not involve in personam orders, but rather monetary judgments in favor of one party or the other.
F. Preliminary versus Permanent Remedies:
Preliminary or provisional remedies are interlocutory, issued during the pendency of a suit and are designed to last only until the end of the suit.
Permanent or final remedies are issued at the end of a suit and are designed to last forever.
Chapter 2: Equity and Equitable Remedies: equitable remedies are not available except when the plaintiff’s legal remedy is inadequate.
Equity judges or chancellors created “maxims” which were generalizations of experience based on the results of prior cases. The maxims included the following “rules:”
He who comes into equity must come with clean hands;
He who seeks equity must do equity;
Equity is a court of conscience;
Equity does not suffer a wrong to go without a remedy
Equity abhors a forfeiture;
Equity regards as done that which ought to have been done;
Equity delights to do justice and not by halves;
Equitable relief is not available to one who has an adequate remedy at law;
Equity relief is discretionary;
Equity aids the vigilant, not those who slumber on their right; (laches)
Equity regards substance rather than form;
Equity acts in personam;
Equity is equality;
Equity follows the law;
Equity will not aid a volunteer;
Where the equities are equal, the law will prevail;
Equity imputes an intent to fulfill an obligation;
Where the equities are equal, the first in time will prevail.
C. Equitable Remedies Today
Standards for the Availability of Equitable Relief
a. Conscience and Equity: Today equitable remedies are only available when “equity” and “conscience” demand them.
b. Equitable Remedies Are Granted In Personam: “equity acts in personam” when a court renders an “in personam” judgment, it orders the defendant to do, or refrain from doing, some act. In contrast, a law court usually renders a monetary judgment.
c. Inadequacy of Legal Remedy/Irreparable Harm: the principle that equitable relief is not available except when plaintiff’s legal remedy is inadequate; aka “irreparable harm” requirement.
Campbell v. Seaman
Procedural Posture
Appellant and respondent were neighboring landowners. Appellant sought review of an order from the Supreme Court in the Third Judicial Department (New York), which granted judgment on behalf of respondent finding the appellant created a nuisance for which respondent was entitled to damages and enjoined appellant from burning brick using anthracite coal in the kiln on his property.
Overview
Intermittently over a period of 25 years, appellant used his property to make bricks. The curing of the bricks in a kiln released a sulfuric acid gas that was carried on the wind onto respondent's land, causing damage to his trees and lowering the value of respondent's land. On appeal, the court affirmed the judgment of the lower court and determined that the injunction was not issued in error because respondent proved that he would have suffered irreparable injury for which there was no adequate remedy at law. The lower court did not err in assessing damages to compensate respondent for the loss of his trees. Respondent was not estopped from asserting his rights by failing to assert them for 25 years. The nuisance was created recently as appellant started using anthracite coal in the curing process that caused the sulfuric acid gas recently.
Outcome
The court affirmed the lower court's judgment.
Forner v. Wilson
Procedural Posture
Defendant seller challenged a decision of the Distri
;
When defendant is insolvent or it is otherwise impossible to collect a monetary judgment;
When plaintiff will be required to bring multiple proceedings to vindicate his rights;
When the plaintiff’s injury is of such a nature that the remedy of damages is substitutionary and ineffective.
Problems:
5. Eliminate the Distinction Between Legal and Equitable Remedies?
Say that a plaintiff gets injured and needs immediate compensation for her injuries. If she cannot wait, she will have to settle her claim for less than it is worth.
Although a preliminary injunction requiring the defendant to make an interim payment of some portion of the likely damages before trial would spare the plaintiff irreparable harm, courts have not granted such relief in these kinds of cases.
Three principles of law have inhibited courts from granting such relief:
Equity will not “take jurisdiction over a legal claim merely to hurry it along”;
“The temporary loss of income, ultimately to be recovered, does not usually constitute irreparable injury”;
A court should not grant an equitable remedy to a claimant who has an “adequate” remedy at law.
d. Equitable Relief is Discretionary: equitable relief remains inherently discretionary. A court may deny equitable relief even though plaintiff’s legal remedy is inadequate.
Georg v. Animal Defense League
Procedural Posture
Plaintiff landowners brought an action against defendant animal shelter, seeking to enjoin the construction of an animal shelter near the landowners' property. Pursuant to Tex. R. Civ. P. 301, the trial court (Texas) entered a judgment non obstante veredicto for the animal shelter following a jury verdict for the landowners. The landowners appealed.
Overview
The animal shelter sought to build a new animal shelter on 25 acres of land outside the city limits of San Antonio, Texas. At trial, the jury made seven special findings, including that the proposed animal shelter was in the interest of the public welfare and that the shelter would not result in a substantial decline in the value of the landowners' property. The trial court entered its judgment non obstante veredicto on the grounds that the landowners were not entitled to an injunction and were relegated to an action for damages. On appeal, the court affirmed. The court held that because the animal shelter was in the public interest, the landowners as private individuals were not entitled to an injunction restraining the construction of the animal shelter but were relegated to an action for damages.
Outcome
The court affirmed the trial court's judgment.
