Abstract

Legal systems differ about the availability of specific performance as a remedy for breach of contract. While common law systems deny specific performance in all but exceptional cases, civil law systems generally award enforcement remedies subject to some exceptions. However, there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which the practice of litigants and courts actually reflects the doctrinal divergence. An equally lively debate revolves around the normative question: Should the injured party be entitled to enforced performance or rather content itself with monetary damages? Very few studies have used qualitative methods, vignette surveys, or incentivized lab experiments to empirically study these issues, and none has quantitatively analyzed actual court judgments. Against the backdrop of the comparative law and theoretical debates, this Article describes the findings of a quantitative analysis of judgments concerning remedies for breach of contract in Israel during a sixty-nine-year period (1948–2016). The judicial and scholarly consensus is that the Remedies Law of 1970 revolutionized Israeli law by turning enforced performance from a secondary, equitable relief to the primary remedy for breach of contract. We nevertheless hypothesized that no such revolution has actually occurred. In fact, neither the common wisdom that the resort to enforced performance has significantly increased following the 1970 Law, nor our skeptic hypothesis that no such increase has occurred, were borne out. According to our findings, the resort to enforced performance actually decreased considerably after 1970. We examine several explanations for this result, and show that this unexpected phenomenon is associated with the increasing length of adjudication proceedings. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

中文翻译：

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普通法与民法体系中的强制执行：对法律转型的实证研究

摘要

法律制度在提供特定性能作为对违反合同的补救措施方面有所不同。普通法系统在所有例外情况下都拒绝特定的执行，而民法系统通常会授予执法救济，但有一些例外情况。但是，关于诉讼人和法院的做法实际上在多大程度上反映了教义上的分歧，目前正在进行辩论。一个同样活跃的辩论围绕着规范性问题展开：受害方是否应有权执行强制执行，还是应该对金钱损失感到满意？很少有研究使用定性方法，小插图调查或激励性实验室实验来对这些问题进行实证研究，而且还没有定量分析实际法庭判决的方法。在比较法和理论辩论的背景下，本文介绍了在六十九年内（1948年至2016年）对以色列违约救济的判决进行定量分析的结果。司法和学术上的共识是，1970年的《救济法》通过将强制执行从次要的，公平的救济变为对违反合同的主要救济，彻底改变了以色列的法律。但是，我们假设实际上没有发生过这样的革命。实际上，无论是关于遵循1970年法律大幅提高诉诸强制执行的常识，还是我们的怀疑性假设（均未实现这种提高），都没有得到证实。根据我们的调查结果，在1970年之后，诉诸强制执行的事实实际上有所减少。我们研究了对此结果的几种解释，并表明这种不可预料的现象与审判程序时间的延长有关。讨论了这些发现的理论和政策含义。