LAW511
Remedies
(Enman-Beech)
Prerequisite courses: N/A
Prerequisite for:
Instructor(s): Professor Jack Enman-Beech
Course credit: 3
Method of presentation: Lecture
Teamwork:
METHOD OF EVALUATION
Optional mid-term that will count as 25% of the final grade if and only if the mark is higher than on the final exam; a final exam for the remainder.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
In private law, remedies are the point where a dispute becomes public. However the parties were dealing together, whatever obligations might have been owed or breached between them, a court eventually steps in to order the payment of money or the doing or not doing of some act. These orders are usually followed, but if they are not, further public resources are used to find a party in contempt, garnish wages, or, at the end of the day, send the sheriff to seize property. Courts and sheriffs are expensive. Obligations and remedies each define the other, and so in remedies all of private law implicates public values—and public resources. Part of what it means to have an obligation, in contract, tort, or property, is that a public institution can be persuaded to exert itself to respond to its breach in a certain way.
This course will cover topics in private law remedies, attending to the division between law and equity: damages and their limits, specific performance and injunctions. Animating themes include the ways obligations and their remedies co-constitute, the public limits on private attempts to tailor obligations and remedies, and the distinct role of conscience in equity.
SPECIAL COMMENTS
Description updated 2025-26. Please contact the instructor for any specific questions you may have related to this particular course section.
REQUIRED TEXTS (IF ANY)
TBD