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A legal remedy (also judicial relief) 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 Commonwealth
common law jurisdictions and related jurisdictions (e.g. the United States), 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 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."
There are three
crucial remedies in the American legal system. One is from the traditional 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 Chancellor of England, commonly called
the Chancery Court, or, more commonly, equity. 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.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.
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