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Concept
Equitable remedy
Summary
Equitable remedies are judicial remedies developed by courts of equity from about the time of Henry VIII to provide more flexible responses to changing social conditions than was possible in precedent-based common law.
Equitable remedies were granted by the Court of Chancery in England, and remain available today in most common law jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions, legal and equitable remedies have been merged and a single court can issue either, or both, remedies. Despite widespread judicial merger, the distinction between equitable and legal remedies remains relevant in a number of significant instances. Notably, the United States Constitution's Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in civil cases over $20 to cases "at common law".
Equity is said to operate on the conscience of the defendant, so an equitable remedy is always directed at a particular person, and that person's knowledge, state of mind and motives may be relevant to whether a remedy should be granted or not.
Equitable remedies are distinguished from "legal" remedies (which are available to a successful claimant as of right) by the discretion of the court to grant them. In common law jurisdictions, there are a variety of equitable remedies, but the principal remedies are:
injunction
specific performance
account of profits
rescission
rectification
equitable estoppel
certain proprietary remedies, such as constructive trusts
subrogation
in very specific circumstances, an equitable lien.
equitable compensation
appointment or removal of fiduciary
interpleader
equitable tracing as a remedy for unjust enrichment
The two main equitable remedies are injunctions and specific performance, and in casual legal parlance references to equitable remedies are often expressed as referring to those two remedies alone. Injunctions may be mandatory (requiring a person to do something) or prohibitory (stopping them doing something). Specific performance requires a party to perform a contract, for example by transferring a piece of land to the claimant.
Official source
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