Legal redress

“ I can find no authority for the broad claim that the 'right of a common-law remedy' extends to any and all means other than proceedings in rem which may be employed to enforce rights or redress injuries, including remedies in pais as well as proceedings in court, those conferred by statute as well as those existing at common law. ”

“ 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 genius, the nature, and the spirit of our state governments amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation, and the general principles of law and reason forbid them. The legislature may enjoin, permit, forbid, and punish; they may declare new crimes, and establish rules of conduct for all its citizens in future cases; they may command what is right and prohibit what is wrong, but they cannot change innocence into guilt, or punish innocence as a crime, or violate the rights of an antecedent lawful private contract, or the right of private property. ”

“ If the means employed have no substantial relation to public objects which the government may legally accomplish, if they are arbitrary and unreasonable beyond the necessities of the case, the judiciary will disregard mere forms and interfere for the protection of rights injuriously affected by such illegal action. ”

“ If the exercise of judicial power be such 'as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the class of cases to which the one in question belongs,' there has been no deprivation of due process of law. ”

“ The constitutional prohibition was intended to protect every man's rights against that kind of legislation which seeks either to inflict a penalty without a trial or to inflict a new penalty for an old matter. ”

“ Undoubtedly the amendment forbids any arbitrary deprivation of life, liberty, or property, and secures equal protection to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their rights; and, in the administration of criminal justice, requires that no different or higher punishment shall be imposed upon one than is imposed upon all for like offenses. ”

“ We proceed now to the consideration of civil justice and to the analysis of the various forms assumed by it. It consists, as we have seen, in the enforcement of rights, as opposed to the punishment of wrongs. The first distinction to be noticed is that the right so enforced is either a Primary or a Sanctioning right. A sanctioning right is one which arises out of the violation of another right. All others are primary; they are rights which have some other source than wrongs. ”

“ Nay, this court, in favour of liberty, hath a power, in all cases; they may, if they see proper, bail a man for crimes that are not ordinarily bailable by common law.
Fifthly, they have a right to hold plea of all the trespasses done vi & armis, though brought principally for a private reparation to the party; for this action favours of a criminal nature, and the king is entitled to a fine for the breach of the peace. ”

“ The co-operative scheme to which the majority of the court give their sanction, by which the general government may create one condition and the States another, and each make up for and supplement the omissions or defects in the legislation of the other, touching the same subject, with its separate penalties for the same offence, and thus produce a harmonious mosaic of statutory regulation, does not appear to have struck the great jurist as a feature in our system of government or one that had been sanctioned by its founders. ”

“ It prohibits every thing which is unjust or contra bonos mores. The object of all law is to repress vice and to promote the general welfare of society; and it does not give its assistance to a person to enforce a demand, originating in his breach or violation of its principles and enactments. Contracts in violation of statutes are void; and they are so whether the consideration to be performed or the act to be done be a violation of the statute. ”

“ It would seem that no argument is necessary to establish the proposition that when substantial rights, resting upon a statute, which is clearly within the legislative power, come in conflict with mere forms and modes of procedure in the courts, the latter must give way, and adapt themselves to the forms necessary to give effect to such rights. ”

“ Though the obligations of contracts must yield to a proper exercise of the police power, [6] and vested rights cannot inhibit the proper exertion of the power, [7] it must be exercised for an end which is in fact public and the means adopted must be reasonably adapted to the accomplishment of that end and must not be arbitrary or oppressive. ”

“ If severity of legislation be any evidence of the practice of the offences prohibited, it must be the duty of courts to take a firm stand, and discountenance, as against the policy of the law, any and every contract which may tend to introduce the offences prohibited. ”

“ The legislature may abolish courts and create new ones, and it may prescribe altogether different modes of procedure in its discretion, though it cannot lawfully, we think, in so doing, dispense with any of those substantial protections with which the existing law surrounds the person accused of crime. ”

“ It is evident, also, that the operations necessary to give effect to the enactments of the legislature are confined to those two occasions; namely, that on which a right is disputed, and that on which it has been violated. On the occasions on which a right is disputed, it is requisite to determine to whom it belongs. On the occasions on which a right has been violated, it is sometimes only required to compel reparation to the injured party; sometimes it is necessary, besides, to inflict punishment upon the offender. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all cases of penalty or punishment, it is contended, enforcement must depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil or criminal process, since the distinction between judicial and administrative functions cannot be preserved consistently with the recognition of an administrative power to enforce a penalty without resort to judicial authority. ”

“ It is clear that there is equitable jurisdiction to prevent irreparable injury, if the sections of the state statute outlawing the Society raise issues of constitutionality. The heavy penalties for violation and the prohibition of the issue of licenses or collection of fees show the need to protect complainants. ”

“ For that section, which provided fines and prison terms for certain individuals who deprived others of rights 'secured or protcted' by § 1, was carefully drafted to exempt private violations of § 1 from the criminal sanctions it imposed. ”