Punitive damages, surely. And the impression I got from the bail article was that it's for-profit bail bonds, not bail tout court, that's exceptional.

Punitive damages, maybe?

Surely. Putative damages are indeed common in your larger punitive judgments, though.

I think, Becks, that you probably meant "punitive" damages, not "putative" damages, since the former is a well-known term and the latter appears to be unusual, if not an actual neologism.

I feel confident that I am the first to point this out to you, and hope that you won't feel in any way abashed at this little slip. No one but you and I will even know it happened, I assure you.

Now, as to the substance of your post:

Totally.

What's especially weird is the US system of giving the punitive damages to the one bringing the suite since the damages are not, in almost all cases, to that particular person. Most countries don't use the civil system to try to enforce good behavior, or at least don't use regular people as private attorneys general, but punish the behavior directly via fines or criminal charges.

All neologisms are unusual, JRoth.

RE 6: Does anyone have a good, concise (i.e., brief) explanation of how our legal system, which started out so reliant on British models, ended up so focused on civil judgment as the prime mover of non-violent-crime justice?

I seem to recall that this was already in place - or at least apparent - by the time of De Tocqueville, but I don't know any further background.

Did it come about due to "frontier justice" - not in the sense of cowboys shooting each other, but in the sense of cowboys suing each other in a context of extremely weak/effectively absent civil authority?

But not all unusual turns of phrase are neologisms, Ben.

Sometimes I misread comments, though.

I won, didn't I, guys? I mean, I'm almost certain that Ben's 7 is bitchery unsupported by the text. And I called him on it.

Go, Me!

And he admits it! Woo!

Although I'm increasingly bothered by the second comma in 11. I added it because it seemed necessary, but it looks very wrong.

Oh, sorry, Becks, were you saying something?

Yes, absolutely - you're right! You definitely were making points more substantive than nitpicking language. No denying that.

Ahem.

JRoth, you should sue Ben for punitive damages.

13 seems like an odd choice for Presidentiality, but thanks for the support anyway, Aaron.

8: Whatever happened to courts of equity, anyway? You still see the (seemingly) archaic language in contracts, e.g. "and this shall be the party's sole remedy at law and at equity." Is equitable relief still an outcome of court rulings?

15: Replaced by arbitration? I have no idea, but that's the only alternative to law courts I know of.

Law and equity were merged way back, so long ago it was long ago even when I learned of it, which was so long ago I can't remember it clearly. The only real importance left is the right to a jury trial, which one has with suits at law but not with claims founded in equity.

Is equitable relief still an outcome of court rulings?

Yes, it can be. Equity courts are gone, but equitable remedies--injunctions, specific performance, etc.--live.

If you value your sanity, Scalia opinions on the topic are best avoided.

Is equitable relief still an outcome of court rulings?

Yes, it can be. Equity courts are gone, but equitable remedies--injunctions, specific performance, etc.--live.

If you value your sanity, Scalia opinions on the topic are best avoided.

See? That's what happens when you read Scalia on equitable remedies.

Pretty much all US courts are courts of both law and equity now, but some of the states have hung on longer than you might expect. Most relevantly, national and international business law is significantly determined by a court of equity: the Delaware Court of Chancery.

I was about to say that in the U.S. legal and equitable remedies are all handed out by the same courts.

I may be totally BS-ing, but I think that trust law deals pretty much exclusively with issues in equity, so it isn't just a question of equitable remedies like injunctions.

There are several states that still have equity courts. Jury triability is the biggest issue in a merged system, but not the only one: we had a case that dealt with international abstention -- that is, dismissing a US case that covers the same subject matter as a pending case in a foreign country -- and convinced the judge that it matters whether the claim sounds at law or in equity.

Dammit. That's spellcheck's fault.

Was it Microsoft's spellcheck? Those fuckers.

Whether a suit is in law or equity will also determine the options for redress. In my state a petition is supposed to state whether it is "in law" or "in equity," although many don't and neither the clerks nor the judges tend to enforce that rule.

Whether a suit is in law or equity will also determine the options for redress.

The rule I was taught in law school for whether a cause of action was in law or equity was (1) look to see whether the relief sought was money damages or some other action to be taken by the court; (2) do a full and exhaustive historical analysis of the origin of that and similar causes of action, and whether they were historically in law courts or courts of equity; (3) if it's money damages, it's law, if it's anything else, it's equity.

That was me.

Is this thread just for the legal ways that the U.S. is exceptional? Because I could bring up shit like peanut butter & jelly, loud talking and heterosexuals having anal sex. If it's gonna be that kinda party.

loud talking

I saw German tourists in Italy. There's at least one other country that shares that trait with us.

Brits are actually appalling too, in that respect (been to Amsterdam lately?), but they're English-speaking, so...

heterosexuals having anal sex

Wait, what's the claim here?