Equity Court - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: equity court Page: 3Specific performance
Specific performance. Equity, in obedience to the cardinal rule of natural justice that a person should perform his agreement enforces, pursuant to a regulated and judicial discretion, the actual accomplishment of a thing stipulated for, on the ground that what is lawfully agreed to be done ought to be done, and that damages at law for breach of the contract are not a sufficient com-pensation. The Common Law has not recognized this principle; it has only given damages to a suffering party for the non-performance of an executory agreement. The (English) C.L.P. Act, 1854, however, imparted to the Common Law writ of mandamus a little more efficacy by provisions since superseded by s. 24 of the Judicature Act, 1873, now by Judicature Act, 1925, s. 36, and the (English) Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 1856, introduced a procedure for enforcing the specific delivery of goods sold, specially superseded by s. 52 of the (English) Sale of Goods Act, 1893.An award of damages may be combined with a ...
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...
Supreme Court of Judicature
Supreme Court of Judicature. By Judicature Act, 1925, s. 1, there shall be a Supreme Court of Judicature in England consisting of His Majesty's High Court of Justice (referred to as the High Court), and His Majesty's Court of Appeal (referred to as the Court of Appeal).Formerly, by the (English) Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, ss. 3 and 4 (amended by (English) Jud. Act, 1875, s. 9), it was enacted that from the commencement of that Act (November 1, 1875: see Judicature Act, 1875, s. 2) the court of Chancery of England, the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, the Court of Exchequer, the High Court of Admiralty, the Court of Probate, and the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, should be united and consolidated together, and should constitute one Supreme Court of Judicature in England; the said Supreme Court to consist of two permanent Divisions, being 'Her (now His) Majesty's High Court of Justice' and 'Her (now His) Majesty's Court of Appeal.'S...
Mortgage
Mortgage [fr. mort, Fr., dead, and gage, pledge], a deed pledge; a thing put into the hands of a creditor.A mortgage is the creation of an interest in property, defeasible (i.e., annullable) upon performing the condition of paying a given sum of money, with interest thereon, at a certain time. This conditional assurance is resorted to when a debt has been incurred, or a loan of money or credit effected, in order to secure either the repayment of the one or the liquidation of the other. the debtor, or borrower, is then the mortgagor, who has charged or transferred his property in favour of or to the creditor or lender, who thus becomes the mortgagee. If the mortgagor pay the debtor loan and interest within the time mentioned in a clause technically called the proviso for redemption, he will be entitled to have his property again free from the mortgagee's claim; but should he not comply with such proviso, the legal estate becomes perfected in the mortgagee, i.e., indefeasible, and so los...
Fraud
Fraud, a fraud is an act of deliberate deception with the design of securing something by taking unfair advantage of another. It is a deception in order to gain by another's loss. It is a cheating intended to got an advantage, S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu v. Jagannath, AIR 1994 SC 853 (855): (1994) 1 SCC 1.A term used in a variety of meanings. At Common Law, fraud is actionable under the heading of deceit (q.v.).A knowing misrepresentation of the truth or con-cealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 670.In equity and upon the equitable principles which are now applicable in any Court of law, fraud may be described as an infraction of the rules of fair dealing. For the action at law intention and representation (q.v.) are material. In equity an act or its consequences to the person aggrieved may be of greater importance than the intention of the defendant or any representation made to the plaintiff, and the same may b...
exchequer
exchequer [Anglo-French eschecker eschequ(i)er, from Old French eschequier royal treasury, reckoning board or cloth marked with squares, literally, chessboard, from eschec chess] 1 cap : a royal office in medieval England at first responsible for the collection and management of the royal revenue and later for the adjudication of revenue cases 2 cap : a former superior court having law and equity jurisdiction in England and Wales over primarily revenue cases and now merged with the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice called also Court of the Exchequer NOTE: The Exchequer was created in England by the Norman kings. In addition to being divided into a court of common law and a court of equity, at one point the Exchequer also had jurisdiction over all actions, except those involving real property, between two subjects of the Crown. In 1841, the Exchequer's equity jurisdiction, except over revenue cases, was transferred to the Court of Chancery, and in 1881 the Exchequ...
Discovery
Discovery, revealing or disclosing matter. The Courts of Common Law were originally unable to compel a litigant to disclose any fact resting merely within his knowledge, or discover any document in his power, which would aid in the enforcement of a right, the repelling of an unjust demand, or the redress of a wrong; an infirmity which the equity judges cured by compelling such a party to disclose the fact, or discover the document, upon his oath, in his answer to a bill of complaint, filed by the opposite party, called a bill of discovery, which was an original bill.Sir James Wigram, V.C., in his work, entitled Points in the Law of Discovery, epitomized the two cardinal principles on this subject in the two following propositions:(1) It is the right, as a general rule, of a plaintiff in equity to exact from the defendant a discovery upon oath as to all matters of fact, which, being well pleaded in the bill, are material to the plaintiff's case about to come on for trial, and which the ...
Breach of trust
Breach of trust, a violation of duty by a trustee, executor, or other person in a fiduciary position.In some cases a breach of trust may be a comparatively venial offence, arising from the trustee having honestly misconstrued the deed or will creating the trust either as to the persons entitled, or as to his powers of investment of or dealing with the trust property, or having otherwise erred in the discharge of his strict duty; in other cases he may have been guilty of negligence or carelessness involving at least some degree of moral blame; or, in other cases again, he may have committed some gross fraud. But in all these cases alike the trustee is personally responsible at the suit of the beneficiaries for any loss which may have resulted, and the rules of equity on the subject were extremely strict and were enforced with great severity by the Court of Chancery. In later times, however, the Court was not quite so astute in fixing honest trustees with liability for breach of trust as...
Lien
Lien [answering to the tacita hypotheca of the Civil Law], a right in one man to retain that which is in his possession belonging to another, until certain demands of the person in possession are satisfied. It is neither a jus in re, nor a jus ad rem--i.e., it is not a right of property in the thing itself, or right of action to the thing itself.It is either particular, as a right to retain a thing for some charge or claim growing out of, or connected with, the identical thing; or general, as a right to retain a thing not only for such charges or claims, but also for a general balance of accounts between the parties in respect to other dealings of the like nature.General and particular liens may arise: (1) by an express contract; (2) by an implied contract, resulting from the usage of trade, or the manner of dealing between parties. General lines are not favoured in law, but some judicially recognized general lines are bankers', solicitors', factors', stockbrokers'. See Halsb. L.E., ti...
Action
Action, conduct, something done; also the form prescribed by Law for the recovery of one's due, or the lawful demand of one's right. Bracton (Bk. 3, cap. 1) defines it:-Actio nihil aliud est quam jus prosequendi in judicio quod alicui debetur.-(An action is nothing else than the right of suing in a court of justice for that which is due to some one.) Actions are divided into criminal and civil: criminal actions are more properly called prosecutions, and perhaps actions penal, to recover some penalty under statute, are properly criminal actions. There were formerly three classes of actions in England: personal actions, in which the plaintiff sought to recover a debt or damages from the defendant; real actions, in which he sought to establish his title to land or other hereditaments; mixed actions, in which he sought only to establish his right to possession of land. All forms of action are now abolished, but there still inevitably remains the distinction between actions in personam brou...
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