Legal recovery

“ A common recovery is so far like a fine, that it is a suit or action, either actual or fictitious: and in it the lands are recovered against the tenant of the freehold; which recovery, being a supposed adjudication of the right, binds all persons, and vests a free and absolute fee-simple in the recoveror. ”

“ All actions which seek to recover specific property, real or personal, with or without damages for its detention, or a money judgment for breach of a simple contract, or as damages for injury to person or property, are legal actions, and can be brought in the federal courts only on their law side. Demands of this kind do not lose their character as claims cognizable in the courts of the United States only on their law side, because in some state courts, by virtue of state legislation, equitable relief in aid of the demand at law may be sought in the same action. ”

“ It limited the relief to be granted under this act, therefore, both by the terms in which it was granted and by other provisions, to the recovery of a moneyed decree, or a restoration of specific property to which the United States or the company was by law entitled.
It is useless, therefore, to inquire what might have been done by some other legislation, or what, independently of legislation, are the rights of the government; for we can only act on such as are recognized by the act under which the Circuit Court proceeded. ”

“ Because we found that the damages sought were neither analogous to equitable restitutionary relief, Tull, 481 U.S., at 424, 107 S.Ct., at 1839, nor incidental to or intertwined with injunctive relief, ibid., we concluded that the remedy had none of the attributes required for an exception to the general rule, and thus found the remedy sought to be legal. ”

“ This court, therefore, being the proper court for personal actions, fines of lands are levied here; for they are fictitious actions, founded on a fictitious breach of covenant.
Mixed actions are designed for the recovery of a specific thing, and also damages, and consequently partake of the nature both of real and personal actions. For instance: If a tenant for life, or years, or at will, commits waste, he forfeits to the owner of the inheritance the place wherein the waste was done, and treble damages. The action of waste, therefore being brought to recover both, is a mixed action. ”

“ Before finally leaving the question of the relations between destitution and crime, we shall now briefly inquire whether anything further can be accomplished in the matter of raising our legal and poor law administration to such a pitch of excellence, that not even five per cent. of our incriminated population can, with justice, bring forward any economic pretext whatever for violating the law. As far as legal administration is concerned, it must be remembered that mistakes will sometimes occur, no matter how numerous the precautions may be with which justice is surrounded. ”

“ It is a well-settled principle of the common law 'that in personal actions concerning debts, goods, and effects (by way of distinction from other actions) , a recovery in one action is a bar to another. ”

“ Limitation on prospective relief In a covered civil action, the court shall not grant or approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of a legal requirement, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct that violation. ”

“ This seems to have been feared by counsel for one of the defendants, who, in his brief, said 'that the giving of a right of recovery to an injured employee is a proper and necessary method for making effective the safety appliance act . . . we do not admit.'
But, if we put aside the authority of precedents, and examine the nature and extent of the grant to Congress of power over commerce in the light of the settled principles of interpretation fit to be applied to the exposition of a constitution, we shall arrive at the same result. ”

“ But independently of this statute, upon the general principles of law and of equity jurisprudence, we are of opinion that we cannot grant the relief asked for. The plaintiff invokes the aid of the principle that all legal remedies having failed, the court of chancery must give him a remedy; that there is a wrong which cannot be righted elsewhere, and hence the right must be sustained in chancery. The difficulty arises from too broad an application of a general principle. ”

“ In a conflict between economic forces and legal enactment there can finally be but one outcome. The law must sooner or later adapt itself to life conditions. The real problem to-day is—how shall this adaptation be accomplished ”

“ In my own view, our legal system’s complexity, our federal system with its separate state and federal courts, our constitutional guar­ antees, our commitment to fair procedure, and, above all, a special need for reliability and fairness in capital cases, combine to make significant procedural “reform” unlikely in practice to reduce delays to an acceptable level. ”

“ To bar equitable relief the legal remedy must be equally effectual with the equitable remedy, as to all the rights of the complainant. Where the remedy at law is not 'as practical and efficient to the ends of justice and its prompt administration,' the aid of equity may be invoked, but if, on the other hand, 'it is plain, adequate, and complete' it must be pursued. ”

“ In suits in those States, recovery against the Government and against a private defendant will not be the same in identical circumstances. Where the degree of fault is high, but the pecuniary injury slight, a large recovery will represent the degree of the individual defendant's culpability, but the Government will be liable only for the slight amount of damage actually done. ”

“ And although a new remedy may be deemed less convenient than the old one, and may, in some respects, render the recovery of debts more tardy and difficult, yet it will not follow that the law is unconstitutional. ”

“ The grounds of recovery are the same in one state as in the other-the injury to the employee in the course of his employment. The whole tendency of our decisions under the full faith and credit clause is to require a plaintiff to try his whole cause of action and his whole case at one time. ”

“ Recovery is denied where the act or omission occurs in the exercise of what are deemed to be governmental powers, and is permitted if it occurs in a proprietary capacity. The basis of the distinction is difficult to state, and there is no established rule for the determination of what belongs to the one or the other class. ”

“ Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. ”

“ It is very clearly shown that the total failure of ordinary remedies does not confer upon the court of chancery an unlimited power to give relief. Such relief as is consistent with the general law of the land, and authorized by the principles and practices of the courts of equity, will, under such circumstances, be administered. ”

“ And they ask for judgment for the recovery of the land and for an order restraining the defendant, his servants, or agents, from interfering with their possession of the land or the improvements thereon, and restraining him or his servants from opening or breaking the fences, or doing other damage thereto, during the pendency of this litigation, and for their costs and disbursements to be taxed. ”

“ Any citizen, acting either as an individual or as a public official under the orders of local or municipal authorities, whether such orders be or be not in pursuance of special legislation or charter provisions, may abate what the common law deemed a public nuisance. In abating it, property may be destroyed, and the owner deprived of it without trial, without notice and without compensation. Such destruction for public safety or health is not a taking of private property for public uses without compensation, or due process of law, in the sense of the constitution. ”

“ Be this as it may, the survival of a judicial remedy under the saving clause of § 216 (j) cannot be determined on the presence or absence in the Commission of primary jurisdiction to decide the basic question on which relief depends. Survival depends on the effect of the exercise of the remedy upon the statutory scheme of regulation. ”

“ So far back as human research carries us, we find the judicial power as a part of the executive, administering justice by the application of remedies to violated rights, or broken contracts. We find that power applying these remedies on the idea of a pre-existing obligation on every man to do what he has promised on consideration to do; that the breach of this obligation is an injury for which the injured party has a just claim to compensation, and that society ought to afford him a remedy for that injury. ”

“ It is likewise thoroughly established in this court that the inhibitions of the constitution of the United States upon the impairment of the obligation of contracts, or the deprivation of property without due process, or of the equal protection of the laws, by the states, are not violated by the legitimate exercise of legislative power in securing the public safety, health, and morals. ”

“ From the foregoing it appears that we have for consideration a statute which undertakes, in the absence of fault, to impose upon all employers (individual and corporate) engaged in enterprises essential to the public welfare, not subject to prohibition by the state and often not attended by any extraordinary hazard, an unlimited liability to employees for damages resulting from accidental injuries-including physical and mental pain-which may be recovered by the injured party or his administrator for benefit of widow, children, parents, next of dependent kin or the estate. ”

“ We desire also to simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings, that the poor may therein be placed on an equality with the rich, and the long delays which now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented. ”

“ Where anyone, in violation of the provisions of this Law, provides legal services under the guise of legal aid and seeks benefits, the judicial administration department shall order him to make corrections, confiscate the illegal gains and impose on him a fine of not less than one time but not more than three times the amount of illegal gains. ”

“ Through hundreds of private relief acts, each Congress for many years has recognized the Government's obligation to pay claims on account of damage to or loss of property or on account of personal injury or death caused by negligent or wrongful acts of employees of the Government. ”

“ The governmental power of self-protection cannot be contracted away, nor can the exercise of rights granted, nor the use of property, be withdrawn from the implied liability to governmental regulation in particulars essential to the preservation of the community from injury. ”

“ The statute of Virginia, under which the action was brought, is, as to the question raised on the demurrer, identical with those of all the other States, giving the right of recovery when the death is caused by such default or neglect as would have entitled the party injured to recover damages if death had not ensued. ”

“ Even after the establishment of courts and the reinstatement of dispossessed persons by their authority, the relief was afforded, not upon any theory of subsisting ownership in the person dispossessed, but by way of redress for the personal grievance which he was perceived to have suffered—as now, even in the acknowledged absence of proprietary rights, we justify a person in recovering an eligible position in a street or other public place from which he has been rudely crowded by another. ”

“ In jurisdictions having the declaratory judgment procedure, it is not necessary to bring about such social and economic waste and destruction in order to obtain a determination of one's rights * * * There seems little question that in many situations in the conduct of business serious disputes occur between parties, where, if there were a possibility of obtaining a judicial declaration of rights in a formal action, much economic waste could be avoided and social peace promoted. ”

“ The suit in this case being one in equity to enforce a common-law remedy, the state courts were correct in assuming jurisdiction.'
The distinction between rights and remedies is fundamental. A right is a well founded or acknowledged claim; a remedy is the means employed to enforce a right or redress an injury. ”

“ The jurisdiction given the District Courts by § 208 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act to enjoin strikes creating a national emergency is a jurisdiction of a kind that has been traditionally exercised over public nuisances. The criterion for judicial action-peril to health or safety-is much like those upon which courts ordinarily have acted. Injunction relief is traditionally given by equity upon a showing of such peril, and the court, as was traditional, acts at the request of the Executive. ”

“ The principle of the law always implying injury, wherever the object or effect is the exposure of the accused to criminal punishment or to degradation in society. These guardian provisions of the law, designed, as we have said, for the security and peace of persons in the ordinary walks of private life, appear in some respects to be extended still farther in relation to persons invested with official trusts. ”