Injunctions and Equitable Remedies
This is a condensed version of the Remedies course, focusing on those remedies that get the least attention in the first year. We will examine preventive, reparative and structural injunctions; declaratory remedies; parts of restitution; and the contempt power — the principal means of enforcing injunctions. We will largely omit compensatory and punitive damages.
Damages and other awards of money are the most familiar remedies, and the most commonly awarded. But injunctions and other equitable remedies are dominant in vast areas of litigation, including civil rights and civil liberties, environmental law, and intellectual property. Courts may order defendants to do or refrain from specific conduct. Courts may simply declare the rights of the parties. Plaintiffs may recover defendants’ profits from a wrongful act, even if those profits exceed the amount of plaintiffs’ loss.
The remedy is usually the client’s real interest in litigation. Clients tend not to be interested in abstract determinations of liability. Thus, Remedies is an intensely practical course. It is also an excellent course for integrating insights from disparate parts of the curriculum and for testing theories of what law is all about.