Equity

The body of law developed by the Court of Chancery to temper the rigidity of common law

Overview

Litigants unsatisfied by rigid common law remedies petitioned the Chancellor, the conscience of the king, and their petitions hardened into a second legal system. Equity contributed injunctions, specific performance, rescission, and the trust, alongside maxims such as he who seeks equity must do equity. The two systems fused administration under the Judicature Acts of the 1870s, though their doctrines remain distinct. When a lawyer today speaks of equitable relief, they invoke this tradition of discretionary justice. Dickens mocked its delays in the fictional case of Jarndyce against Jarndyce in Bleak House.