Equity - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition equity

Definition :

Equity [fr. 'quitas, Lat.] There is some confusion as to the meaning of Equity; as a scheme of jurispru-dence distinct from Law 'Equity' is an equivocal term; the difficulty lies in drawing the dividing lines between the several senses in which it is used. They may be distinguished thus:-

(1) Taken broadly and philosophically, Equity means to do to all men as we would they should do unto us-by the Justinian Pandects, honeste vivere, alterum non l'dere, suum cuique tribuere. It is clear that human tribunals cannot cope with so wide a range or duties.

(2) Taken in a less universal sense, Equity is used in contradistinction to strict law. This is Moral Equity, which should be the genius of every kind of human jurisprudence; since it expounds and limits the language of the positive laws, and construes them not according to their strict letter, but rather in their reasonable and benignant spirit.

Aristotle, in his discussion concerning Moral Equity, Ethics Eud., b.v., c. x, calls it the correction of mere law, where mere law fails on account of its univer-sality and points to the impossibility of providing for every possible predicament in express words.

(3) But it is in neither of these senses that Equity is to be understood as the substantial justice which has been expounded by the Court of Chancery. It is here accepted in a more limited and technical sense, and may be called Municipal Equity, and described as the system of supplemental law administered in Chancery, and founded upon defined rules, recorded precedents, and established principles, to which it closely adheres; the judges, however, liberally expounding and developing them, in order to meet novel exigencies. While it aims to assist the defects of the Common Law, by extending relief to those rights of property which the strict law does not recognize, and by giving more ample and distributive redress than the ordinary tribunals afford, it by no means either controls, mitigates, or supersedes the Common Law, but rather guides itself by its analogies, and does not assume any power to subvert its doctrines. This is amply shown by two well-known maxims of the Court of Chancery, viz., 'quitas sequitur legem, and Where the Equities are equal, the Common Law must prevail.

The grand characteristic of Municipal Equity is displayed in the nature and extent of its redress. Not content, as the Common Law generally is, to adjudicate strictly and absolutely in rem, i.e., upon the transaction itself, as it is presented by the litigants, Equity insists upon the conscientious obligations of the suitors; and by adjudicating in personam, may compel specific performance (see that title) of a contract where law would only give damages for the breach of it, and stop a wrong by injunction (see that title) where law would only give damages for the commission of it. Consult Story's Eq. Juris., chap. I. And see TRUST. Complete powers are now given to all branches of the Supreme Court to administer Equity, though many matters of equitable jurisdiction are for conve-nience assigned to the Chancery Division of the High Court for adjudication)Jud. Act, 1925, s. 36), though in general it may be said that this fusion only allows legal and equitable remedies to be enforced either in Equity or at Common Law; it has not changed the nature of equitable as opposed to legal rights (A.P. notes to s. 23, ibid.). see CHANCERY.

The body of principles constituting what is fair and right; natural law, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn.