Free tool · Equity and Trusts
Will a Court Grant an Injunction or Specific Performance?
Equitable remedies are discretionary and available only if money damages would be inadequate. For an injunction, the plaintiff must show irreparable harm, that the balance of hardships favours them and that the public interest is not harmed. For specific performance, there must be a valid, definite contract, a unique subject matter (land is always treated as unique), a plaintiff who is ready, willing and able to perform, and an order the court can enforce without continuing supervision; personal services are never specifically enforced. Rescission and reformation need grounds such as fraud or mistake. Equitable defences, such as laches (unreasonable, prejudicial delay) and unclean hands, can bar the remedy. Choose the remedy and the facts to see how a court would reason.
Tool · Equitable Remedy Checker
A court would probably be willing to grant the equitable relief, in its discretion.
Inadequate legal remedy: Money damages would not be an adequate remedy (a unique thing, damages hard to measure, an insolvent defendant, or a continuing or repeated wrong), so equity can act.
Irreparable harm: The plaintiff must show a likelihood of irreparable harm: harm that cannot be undone or fully compensated by damages (eBay v MercExchange; Winter v NRDC).
Balance of hardships: The hardship to the plaintiff from refusing the injunction must outweigh the hardship to the defendant from granting it.
Public interest: The public interest must not be disserved by the injunction.
Laches: No unreasonable, prejudicial delay.
Unclean hands: No inequitable conduct by the plaintiff in the matter.
- Equity acts in personam: it commands a party to act or refrain, and disobedience is punished as contempt. Equitable remedies are discretionary, unlike damages, and a jury is generally not available.
- Equity has maxims: ‘equity will not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy’, ‘he who seeks equity must do equity’, ‘he who comes into equity must come with clean hands’ and ‘equity aids the vigilant, not those who sleep on their rights’.
- A preliminary injunction needs a likelihood of success on the merits as well as the four factors, and a temporary restraining order is for emergencies, preserving the status quo until a hearing.
Tests whether a court is likely to grant an equitable remedy (an injunction, specific performance, rescission or reformation): damages must be inadequate, the specific requirements of the remedy must be met, and equitable defences (laches and unclean hands) must not bar it. Equitable relief is discretionary. Simplified general American principles; a teaching aid with invented facts, not a prediction and not legal advice. Runs in your browser; nothing is stored or sent.
How to use it
- Choose the remedy sought.
- Say whether damages would be inadequate.
- Answer the questions specific to that remedy.
- Say whether laches or unclean hands applies, and read the result.
Common questions
What is irreparable harm?
Harm that cannot be fully undone or compensated by money, such as the loss of a unique property, a business’s goodwill or something that cannot be replaced.
Why is land specifically enforceable?
Every parcel of land is treated as unique, so money damages are presumed to be inadequate.
What is laches?
An unreasonable delay in asserting a right that prejudices the other side, which can bar equitable relief even if the time limit for a legal claim has not run.
Learn the law behind the tool
This tool is part of our Equity and Trusts course, with lectures, concept maps, flashcards, interactive exercises and a capstone case. Equity and Trusts: Equity and Equitable Remedies.
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General information, simplified, mainly on American law, not legal advice. States and countries differ, and real cases turn on facts that a tool cannot capture.