Also known as: remedy at law · legal remedies · common law remedies
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Monetary awards or other compensatory relief granted by courts of common-law jurisdiction. These remedies focus on making a plaintiff whole through payment of damages rather than compelling specific conduct or altering legal relations.
Rebecca Ross paid a nonlawyer to prepare divorce papers and explain available options for dividing property and seeking support. When the court later reviewed the documents, it treated the matter as one seeking only money damages for any overpayment rather than ordering the nonlawyer to perform additional legal tasks.
Rosa Ruiz challenged a writ of replevin issued against her household goods after she missed payments on a purchase contract. The court noted that her available remedies at law included pursuing a damages action in state court rather than seeking immediate equitable intervention in federal proceedings.
Margarita Fuentes, a Florida resident, purchased a gas stove and a stereophonic phonograph from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company under conditional sales contracts calling for monthly payments over time, with Firestone retaining title until full payment. After making payments for more than a year, about two hundred dollars remained due. A dispute developed between Fuentes and Firestone over servicing of the stove. Firestone then instituted an action in small claims court for repossession. It obtained a writ of replevin from the court clerk by submitting form documents and posting a bond in double the value of the property. A deputy sheriff and Firestone agent seized the stove and stereo from Fuentes's home the same day. Fuentes subsequently brought an action in federal district court challenging the constitutionality of the Florida prejudgment replevin procedures. A three-judge district court was convened and upheld the statute. In the consolidated Pennsylvania case, several residents purchased household goods such as beds, tables, and other items under similar installment contracts. After claimed defaults, sellers obtained writs of replevin from a prothonotary upon ex parte applications and posting of bonds. County sheriffs seized the goods from the buyers' homes without prior notice. This included one instance where a former deputy sheriff obtained a writ for his son's clothes, furniture, and toys. The Pennsylvania appellants filed suit in federal district court, where a three-judge court upheld the statute. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of the appeals from both district court decisions.
View caseRoger Ramirez sued federal agents for an unlawful search that damaged his property. Because no statute authorized injunctive relief against the officers, the court limited him to remedies at law consisting of a damages award to compensate for the harm.
On the morning of November 26, 1965, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics entered Webster Bivens's apartment in the Bronx. The agents broke open the door, handcuffed Bivens in front of his wife and young children, and thoroughly searched the apartment. They then transported Bivens to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was interrogated, booked, and subjected to a visual strip search. Several days later Bivens was released on his own recognizance, and he was never indicted or prosecuted for any offense. Bivens filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the six agents in their individual capacities. His complaint sought fifteen thousand dollars in damages from each agent and alleged that the arrest and search were effected without a warrant, that unreasonable force was employed, and that the arrest was made without probable cause. Bivens claimed to have suffered great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering as a result of the agents' conduct. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment.
View caseRegina Robinson brought a stockholder derivative action alleging corporate mismanagement. The court separated the underlying corporate claim, which presented legal issues triable by jury, from the equitable stockholder standing issue, allowing remedies at law to be decided by the jury.
Petitioners, who were stockholders in the Lehman Corporation, a closed-end investment company, brought a derivative action in federal district court against the corporation's directors and its brokers, Lehman Brothers. They alleged that Lehman Brothers had obtained control through an illegally large representation on the board in violation of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and used that control to extract excessive brokerage fees from the corporation. The complaint charged the directors with converting corporate assets and with gross abuse of trust, gross misconduct, willful misfeasance, bad faith, and gross negligence. It also accused both the directors and Lehman Brothers of breaching fiduciary duties, committing waste and spoliation, and violating the brokerage contract. Petitioners requested that the defendants account for and pay to the corporation their profits and gains and its losses. They demanded a jury trial on the corporation’s claims. The district court denied the motion to strike the jury demand in part. It held that only the shareholder’s initial claim to speak for the corporation would be tried to the judge while the corporation’s underlying claims would be tried to a jury if the corporation itself had brought suit. Finding substantial grounds for difference of opinion, the district court certified the question for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that a derivative action is entirely equitable in nature and that no jury is available to try any part of it. Because of the conflict among the circuits, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseRonald Reed sought a federal injunction to halt his ongoing state criminal prosecution. The court declined the request and directed him instead to pursue remedies at law available through the state court process.
John Harris, Jr., was indicted in a California state court charged with violation of the California Penal Code §§ 11400 and 11401, known as the Criminal Syndicalism Act. He then filed a complaint in the Federal District Court asking that court to enjoin District Attorney Evelle J. Younger of Los Angeles County from prosecuting him. Harris alleged that the prosecution and the presence of the Act inhibited him in the exercise of his rights of free speech and press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Jim Dan and Diane Hirsch, members of the Progressive Labor Party, intervened as plaintiffs claiming that the prosecution of Harris would inhibit them from peacefully advocating the program of their party to replace capitalism with socialism. Farrell Broslawsky, an instructor in history at Los Angeles Valley College, also intervened claiming that the prosecution made him uncertain whether he could teach about the doctrines of Karl Marx or read from the Communist Manifesto as part of his classwork. None of the intervenors had been indicted, arrested, or threatened with prosecution. A three-judge Federal District Court convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284 held that it had jurisdiction and power to restrain the District Attorney from prosecuting. The court held that the State's Criminal Syndicalism Act was void for vagueness and overbreadth in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It accordingly restrained the District Attorney from further prosecution of the pending action against Harris, as reported at 281 F. Supp. 507 (1968). Younger appealed directly to the Supreme Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1253. At the time the federal suit was filed, Harris was actually being prosecuted by California for a violation of the Criminal Syndicalism Act. The intervenors claimed only that they felt inhibited by the Act and the pending prosecution of Harris, without alleging any threat of prosecution against themselves.
View caseRhea Reynolds, as bankruptcy trustee, sued to recover assets allegedly transferred to avoid creditors. The court held that the action sought remedies at law in the form of a monetary recovery, entitling the defendants to a jury trial on the factual issues.
The Chase & Sanborn Corporation filed a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in 1983. A plan approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida then vested in respondent Nordberg, the trustee in bankruptcy, causes of action for fraudulent conveyances. In 1985 respondent filed suit against petitioners Granfinanciera, S. A., and Medex, Ltda., in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging that petitioners had received $1.7 million from Chase & Sanborn's corporate predecessor within one year of the bankruptcy petition without receiving consideration or reasonably equivalent value. The complaint sought to avoid the transfers and recover damages under 11 U. S. C. §§ 548(a)(1) and (a)(2), 550(a)(1) (1982 ed. and Supp. V). The District Court referred the proceedings to the Bankruptcy Court. Over five months later respondent served a summons on petitioners in Bogota, Colombia shortly before the Colombian Government nationalized Granfinanciera. In their answer both petitioners requested a trial by jury on all issues so triable. The Bankruptcy Judge denied petitioners' request for a jury trial, deeming a suit to recover a fraudulent transfer a core action that originally, under the English common law, as I understand it, was a non-jury issue. Following a bench trial, the court dismissed with prejudice respondent's actual fraud claim but entered judgment for respondent on the constructive fraud claim in the amount of $1,500,000 against Granfinanciera and $180,000 against Medex. The District Court affirmed without discussing petitioners' claim that they were entitled to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit also affirmed, 835 F. 2d 1341 (1988), ruling that petitioners lacked a statutory right to a jury trial because the constructive fraud provision contains no mention of such a right and 28 U. S. C. § 1411 affords jury trials only in personal injury or wrongful death suits, and that the Seventh Amendment supplied no right because fraudulent conveyance actions are equitable in nature and bankruptcy proceedings are inherently equitable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether petitioners were entitled to a jury trial, 486 U. S. 1054 (1988), and now reverses.
View caseRemedies at law typically provide monetary compensation to restore a plaintiff to the position occupied before the wrong. Equitable remedies instead compel specific performance or issue injunctions when money damages would be inadequate.
Courts view remedies at law as adequate when a monetary award can fully compensate the plaintiff for the loss. In such cases, equitable relief such as specific performance is ordinarily denied.
Yes. Claims seeking remedies at law generally carry a right to jury trial on factual issues, whereas purely equitable claims do not. Modern merger of law and equity has not eliminated this distinction.
Modern procedure permits joinder of legal and equitable claims. The court may award damages at law while also granting equitable relief when both are necessary to provide complete redress.