Authored by Andrew M. Horton and Peggy McGehee

 

Maine Civil Remedies examines the major remedies available to civil litigants in Maine courts, including injunctions, declaratory judgments, specific performances, and damages.  The text focuses on those cases in which remedy issues most frequently arise, including employment contracts, defamation, real estate contracts, frauds and myriad others.

"Maine Civil Remedies is an indispensable tool for any attorney - or law student - who is analyzing issues regarding the appropriate claims and remedies in a civil litigation matter. The authors have assembled and organized the case law into a comprehensive yet clear text on the topics one is most likely to face."

Deirdre M. Smith

Associate Professor of Law

University of Maine School of Law

            "This often cited publication needs no introduction.  It's hard to believe that this essential book is already in its 4th printing – the first edition having appeared in 1988.  It merely serves to show that there is always a need for practical, straightforward legal information about which remedies are available for nearly any type of civil litigation. 

 

            Judge Horton and his wife and co-author Peggy McGehee, have done it again – a book for lawyers that succinctly (but thoroughly) analyzes the various remedies available in civil cases in Maine state courts.  Covered topics include the everyday:  negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, damages, specific performance, contracts and torts – as well as the more seldom used: declaratory judgments, injunctions, equitable accounting, liens and other creditors' remedies, and trustee process.  No matter what the remedy, the authors cover it.

 

One of the reasons this book is so well known is its uncomplicated style.  For busy lawyers, such writing is both unusual and welcome.  Take the section on damages, for example:

 

Damages are the most commonly awarded remedy for violation of a legal duty.  There are four types of damages, each of which is discussed in detail below: (1) nominal damages; (2) compensatory damages; (3) exemplary or punitive damages; and (4) liquidated damages.  A damages award must be based on a legally cognizable injury resulting from the violation a legally protected right or interest.

 

What could be simpler?

 

            What is especially appealing in this book is how the text flows without the need to constantly refer to footnotes.  The authors made great efforts to write in a way that allows one to ignore the specifics contained in footnotes when reading about topics the reader is already familiar with.  But make no mistake; the publication is filled with detailed and thoroughly researched footnotes that lead to specific authorities for more in depth analysis.  Take this simple sentence dealing with attorney fees (in which I have omitted the footnotes contained in the original text):

 

Statutory provisions for recovery of attorney fees in Maine apply in civil rights actions; human rights actions; employee actions; divorce actions; homeowner/tenant actions; credit and fair trade matters; actions or matters in which attorneys act in a fiduciary capacity; municipal actions on the public's behalf; actions arising from a corporation's failure to disclose; motor vehicle-products liability actions; and many other miscellaneous actions. 

 

            The sentence as it stands is a clear compilation of the types of actions where statutory attorney fees are available and it reads well on its own.  But if this remedy were your focus, the original text contains 11 footnotes that, according to my count, cite 45 different Maine statutes and 8 Law Court cases.

 

            The book is well organized; it's just as easy to find sections that provide the "big picture" as it is those presenting greater detail.  There is a general Table of Contents in the beginning of the book and each chapter has a separate detailed Table of Contents.  The book has a complete Index that references key words to specifics sections of the book so it's easy to find the section that applies to your specific situation.

 

            All in all, it's difficult to find many things wrong with this publication.  The only fault I could find is that the book doesn't have a Table of Cases or a Table of Statutes.  One would think that it would be a relatively easy task to assemble these tables and they would greatly assist those attorneys who are urged by a judge or fellow lawyer to review a certain case or statute.  This is something the publisher should consider in the 5th edition.

 

            My verdict is clear: Maine Civil Remedies is practical, straightforward, comprehensive and authoritative.  It should be on every Maine lawyer's desk." - Alan Nye, for the Maine Lawyers Review

About the Authors:

Andrew Marcus Horton has been a judge of the Maine District Court since November 1999. He is chair of the Maine Judicial Branch’s standing Domestic Violence Advisory Committee and one of the two judges assigned to the Portland Adult Drug Court.  Before becoming a judge, he practiced law with the Portland firm of Verrill &Dana for 21 years, and previously worked as a reporter for two large daily newspapers. He has been married to Peggy McGehee since January 1973, and they have four children. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center. He teaches the remedies course at the University of Maine School of Law.  He is a member of the Maine State and Cumberland Bar Associations, and an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Peggy McGehee is a member of the Portland law firm of Perkins, Thompson, Hinckley & Keddy, where she has practiced land use and general litigation law since 1982. She is married to the co-author of Maine Civil Remedies, Mark Horton. Peggy McGehee has served the Bar in various capacities:  as President of the Maine Bar Foundation in 2000, as a current member of the Advisory Board of the University of Maine School of Law; as a current member of the Maine Courts’ Pro Se Litigation Task Force; as Barrister of the Gignoux Inn of Court; and as past Co-Chair of the State Non-Adversarial Forum Committee. Peggy McGehee has a B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. She has presented numerous seminars on land use law, is a past recipient of Pine Tree Legal Services’ award for Pro Bono Service, and in 2003, she received the “Women of Achievement” award from the Y.W.C.A.