Remedies as an Area of Law in General Research Paper

Introduction

Legal remedies are the means through which justice is achieved in other ways besides the usual jail sentences or death penalties. However, legal rights must be involved in the process. They are usually granted after judgment or hearing where the court orders the plaintiff and the defendant to reach an agreement but the settlement has to be within the operations of the law. Most legal remedies involve compensation where the defendant is required to pay either money or is prohibited from undertaking certain actions.

In other cases, however, an exaggerated remedy may be adopted where the judge appoints a third party to act as a referee or an investigator. The most commonly used extraordinary remedy; however, is the appointment of a third party to take charge of the property especially where compensation of destroyed property is involved (¹). There are different forms of remedies to be adopted depending on the nature of the case as well as the plaintiff’s choice of recovery.

Equitable and legal remedies

It is necessary to determine how, when and why judicial relief or legal remedy is offered to those who have been offended. The issue is to determine what happens to a person when their rights have been contravened. In other words, it is necessary to determine how, when and why judicial relief or legal remedy is offered to those who have been offended.

Prior to an examination of the various forms of remedies available, it is essential to examine why they exist in the first place. Legal remedy comes from the notion of a legal maxim where existence of a right necessitates remedy. In other words, the principle relies on assertions that whenever a right has been with-held, then there should be a remedy in place to correct that or if an injury has occurred then the victim should be duly redressed through the remedy (²).

It is necessary to understand how remedy is carried out by the parties concerned. In the United States, legal remedy is offered through three major pathways including monetary compensation to a victim. Here, the offender is obligated to pay damages in the form of either compensatory damage if the issue under consideration is bodily injury or punitive damages when the offending party has taken part in some kind of fraud or any such misconduct. The second method of offering remedies is through equity where the defendant is obligated to right the wrong that he committed against the complainant.

Here, the court may issue an injunction or a specific performance where the party to a contract is obligated to complete his end of the bargain or to perform a certain task (specified in the contract) that he had failed to do so in the beginning. This category may also be called coercive remedies where the court will tell a defendant not to behave in a certain manner and reinforce it using contempt where he or she will be arrested if he/ she disobey this order. Lastly, the justice system in the country offers declaratory relief where the concerned parties are required to abide by a certain declaration made by the court. This may take the form of a divorce or any other decree made by the court.

Once a right has been violated, a person is normally entitled to a legal action after completion of the right court procedures. The extent to which the person is relieved or the nature of the remedy will really depend on the kind of issue under the consideration and the extent of violation of a right. For examples, if a businessman had entered into a contract to be supplied with spare parts for the completion of certain tasks and the supplier sends him substandard parts which ruin the engines of the vehicles under repair then that supplier will be required to pay the businessman restitution so that he can go back to where he would have been, were it not for the wrong supply of the spare parts in question.

In such a scenario, the court is likely to decide on an amount that would deal with the spoilt engines and the cost of repairing the vehicle for the first time. In situations where money does not offer relief to the affected party, then the court will look for equity remedies. For example, a person who has not lived up his end of the contract may not necessarily solve the problem by paying monetary compensation to the plaintiff so such a person needs to be forced to honor his part through an equitable remedy like an injunction (³).

Parties need to know that before seeking legal redress for their grievances, the court will only put them where they were before they were subjected to the wrong or will try to compensate them monetarily up to the point that they were originally. This can either be done through legal or equity. This came about with the merging between the court of law and the courts of equity. However, in both courts, the remedy may not always be granted according to the legality of the situation.

In rare cases, though, both legal and equitable remedies may be available during which the plaintiff may have to conduct an election of remedies which involves the plaintiff choosing only one remedy from the available possible remedies to prevent double recovery of the loss incurred. In addition, the plaintiff may adopt a provisional remedy which is meant to protect the plaintiff from incurring losses in case the involved party fails to pay the for the damages caused. The common forms of provisional remedies are arrest and injunction (³).

Conclusion

Legal remedies were developed to cater for those cases which do not require punishments to the guilty parties. In other words, they are used by courts to settle disputes especially those involving claims between different parties. These remedies, principally, involve compensation in terms of money or other services which should take the plaintiff to the condition he/she was before the damage was done. However, these processes must be carried out according to the law to prevent exploitation between both parties. Compensation by money, however, does not necessarily require the plaintiff to have suffered loss or damage of property.

An injured plaintiff through an accident may require the person involved in the accident to compensate the pain and suffering by paying a certain amount of money in addition to compensations on the costs of medical bills incurred due to the accident. Besides compensation measures, legal remedies may as well involve requests to prevent a person from acting in a particular manner with the aim of protecting the plaintiff as well as the public. Legal remedies, therefore, provide the best legal solutions to conflicting parties as well as preventing loss of property.

Works Cited

1. Redmond, Jodee. “What are legal remedies?” 2003. Web.
2. Llewellyn, David. “Legal remedies for penile torts”. 2002. Web.
3. Bouvier, John. “Remedy”. 2011. Web.