Courses

This is a survey course on litigation after the liability determination—on everything a court can do for a claimant who has been wronged or is about to be wronged. We will survey the principal remedies: compensatory damages, punitive damages, injunctions (including preliminary injunctions, which come before the liability determination), declaratory judgments, and restitution. We will constantly ask what the plaintiff can get, why he can get that, why he can’t get more, and which remedy is best for him. From the defendant’s perspective, the question is usually how the remedy can be minimized. From the court’s perspective, which remedy is best, right, just, or efficient? The material on damages builds and expands on the small sample you likely encountered in Torts and Contracts. The other remedies will likely be less familiar. The remedy is usually the client’s real interest in litigation, and often the source of the lawyer’s pay as well. 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.