Chancery - Law Dictionary Search Results
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Rules of Court, orders regulating the practice of the Courts; or orders made between parties to an action or suit.(1) General rules regulating the practice of the Courts, both of Common Law and Equity, have from time to time been made by the Courts in pursuance of the powers of various Acts of Parliament. See as to the Common Law Courts, which promulgated consecutive Rules without any division into Orders, Day's Common Law Procedure Acts; and as to the Court of Chancery, which promulgated Orders subdivided into Rules, Morgan's Chancery Acts and Orders. The scheme of the Chancery Procedure Acts was that the Orders made thereunder should come into force as soon as made, subject to the power of Parliament to annul them afterwards (see, e.g., Chancery Procedure Act, 1858, s. 12), while that of the Common Law Procedure Acts, was that Rules made thereunder should not come into force until they had lain before Parliament for three months (see 13 & 14 Vict. c. 16, and Common Law Procedure Act,...
Original Writ or Original
Original Writ or Original [breve originale, Lat.], was the beginning or foundation of a real action at Common Law. It is also applied to processes for some other purposes.It was a mandatory letter issuing out of the Common Law or ordinary jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (see now CHANCERY), under the Great Seal, and in the sovereign's name, addressed to the sheriff of the county where the injury was committed, containing a summary statement of the cause of complaint, andrequiring him to command the defendant to satisfy the claim, and, on his failure to comply, then to summon him to appear in one of the superior Courts of Common Law. In some cases it simply required the sheriff to enforce the appearance. Original writs differed from each other in their tenor, according to the nature of the plaintiff's complaint, and were conceived in fixed and certain forms. Many of these are of a remote antiquity; others are of later origin, and their history is as follows:-The ancient writs had p...
Lancaster
Lancaster, a county of England erected into a palatine in the reign of Edward III, and granted by him to his son John for life, that he should have jura regalia and a king-like power to pardon treasons, outlawries, etc., and make justices of the peace and justices of assize within the county, and all processes and indictments to be in his name. It is later vested in the Crown. It has a separate Chancery Court, the procedure of which is regulated by Acts of 1850, 1854, and 1890 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 43, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 82,and 53 & 54 Vict. c. 23), the last of these Acts conferring on the Court exactly the same jurisdiction as that of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice [see (English) Judicature Act, 1925, s. 18(2)]; the Common Pleas became vested in the High Court, but the Chancery at Lancaster was not so vested. See also (English) Chancery of Lancaster Rules, 1930, and Chancery of Lancaster (Companies) Rules, 1930, printed in 1930, W.N. Part II., pp. 63, 68. See COUNTY PALA...
Equity
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 correc...
Guardianship
Guardianship. The care of and responsibility for a person of non-age or infancy in regard to its person or property, or both. At Common Law, the father is the guardian by nature and nurture but the rights and duties relating to that office have been modified in favour of the mother by the (English) Custody of Infants Act, 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 12, (English) Guardianship of Infants Acts, 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. 27), and 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5, c. 45), and the (English) Custody of Children Act, 1891 (54 Vict. c. 3). The main consideration is the welfare of the child. In modern times, guardians may be said to be of six kinds:-(1) Testamentary.--By 12 Car. 2, c. 24, s. 8, the father, and by s. 5 of the Act of 1925, both father and mother have an equal right to appoint a guardian by deed or will to act after death respectively either jointly with the survivor or otherwise, as the Court may direct.(2) Maternal.--Under the Acts of 1886 and 1925, s. 4, on the death of the father, the mother, if ...
Master of the Rolls
Master of the Rolls [magister rotulorum, Lat.], originally the chief of a body of officers called the Masters in Chancery, of whom there were eleven others, including the Accountant-General. The Master of the Rolls subsequently became a judge of the Court of Chancery, who ranked next to the Lord Chancellor, and had the keeping of the rolls and grants which passed the Great Seal, and the records of the Chancery. All orders and decrees by him made, except such as by the course of the Court, were appropriated to the Great Seal alone, were deemed to be valid, subject, nevertheless, to be discharged or altered by the Lord Chancellor, and were not enrolled till they were signed by the Lord Chancellor, 3 Geo. 2, c. 30.This judge, by the (English) Jud. Act, 1881, s. 2 [see now Jud. (English) Act, 1925, s. 6 (2)], now sits in the (English) Court of Appeal only. Before that Act he was the second judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice [Jud. Act, 1873, s. 31 (1)], and also an ...
Unclaimed property
Unclaimed property. This devolves on the Crown at Common Law. Unclaimed property may be dealt with under the heads of (1) Government Stock, (2) Chancery Funds, (3) Stock in Public Companies, (4) Bankers' Balances, (5) Deposits with Bankers for Safe Custody, and (6) Found Property.(1) Government Stock.-The National Debt Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 71), ss. 51 et seq., as extended by 20 & 21 Geo. 5, c. 28, s. 49 provides that stock on which no dividend has been claimed for ten years must be transferred to the National Debt Commissioners. Lists of names in which the stock stood, with residence, description and amount of stock and date of transfer, are to be kept at the Bank of England [or Ireland, but see 13 Geo. 5, c. 2, s. 6 (d)] and at the National Debt Office, open to inspection, and also kept in duplicate at the National Debt Office. The stock may be re-transferred to persons showing title after, in the case of stock exceeding 20l., three months' public notice by advertisement. A sec...
Uses
Uses (History). A use is the intention or purpose, express or implied, upon which property is to be held. The Common Law treated the actual possessor for all purposes as the owner of the property. It was not difficult to find him out, since the possession of his estate was conferred upon him by a formal and notorious ceremony, technically called livery of seisin, which was performed openly and in the presence of the people of the locality.It soon became evident that the simple rules of the Common Law were stumbling-blocks to the complicated wants of an enterprising people.Hence ingenuity was sharpened to hit upon a device which should set at nought the rigidity of existing law and formalities.A system was found by the monastic jurists upon a model furnished by the Civil Law, which, by a nice adaptation, evaded, without overturning, the Common Law. Two methods of transferring realty began to co-exist in this country-the ancient Common Law system, and the later invention, which is denomi...
Foreclosure
Foreclosure. A mortgagee, or any person claiming an interest in the mortgage under him, can compel the mortgagor, after breach of the condition, to elect either to redeem the pledge or that his equity of redemption be extinguished by an order of the Court. The foreclosure of mortgages is one of the matters assigned to the Chancery Division of the High Court. [Jud. Act, 1925, s. 56(1)]A legal proceeding to terminate a mortgagor's interest in property, instituted by lender either to gain title or to force a sale in order to satisfy the unpaid debt secured by property, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn.Law of Property Act, 1925 (English) s. 91, replacing the Conveyancing Act, 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 41), s. 25, replacing the (English) Chancery Procedure Act, 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. 86), s. 48, empowers either mortgagor or mortgagee to obtain an order for sale instead of redemption or foreclosure.See ss. 88 and 89 of the (English) L.P. Act, 1925, in regard to the estate acquired by the mortgag...
Masters of the Supreme Court
Masters of the Supreme Court, in the King's Bench Division, officials, seven in number, deriving their title from the (English) Jud. (Officers) Act, 1879 (see now Jud. Act, 1925, ss. 106, 122, Sched. III., Part I.), and filling the places of the Masters of the Common Law Courts, the King's Coroner and Attorney, the Master of the Crown Office, the two Record and Writ Clerks, and the three Associates. Their jurisdiction is mainly to hear summonses for directions (see DIRECTIONS, SUMMONS FOR), to supervise pleadings, and decide as to discovery. There are also Masters in the Chancery Division who have succeeded to the position and powers of the Chief Clerks of the Chancery judges, the title of 'Master of the Supreme Court' having been substituted for that of 'Chief Clerk in 1897. Under the present system there are three sets of Chancery Chambers, each with four Masters and attached to two judges. The duties of the Masters are to hear summonses for directions, take accounts and answer inqui...
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