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Legal equity: The Court of Chancery, in early 19th-century London.. In the field of jurisprudence, equity is the particular body of law, developed in the English Court of Chancery, [1] with the general purpose of providing legal remedies for cases wherein the common law is inflexible and cannot fairly resolve the disputed legal matter. [2]
The law of trusts was constructed as a part of "Equity", a body of principles that arose in the Courts of Chancery, which sought to correct the strictness of the common law. The trust was an addition to the law of property , in the situation where one person held legal title to property but the courts decided it was fair just or "equitable ...
Maxims of equity are legal maxims that serve as a set of general principles or rules which are said to govern the way in which equity operates. They tend to illustrate the qualities of equity, in contrast to the common law, as a more flexible, responsive approach to the needs of the individual, inclined to take into account the parties' conduct and worthiness.
Notably, the United States Constitution's Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in civil cases over $20 to cases "at common law". Equity is said to operate on the conscience of the defendant, so an equitable remedy is always directed at a particular person, and that person's knowledge, state of mind and motives may be relevant ...
Equality before the law is a tenet of some branches of feminism. In the 19th century, gender equality before the law was a radical goal, but some later feminist views hold that formal legal equality is not enough to create actual and social equality between women and men.
A court of equity, also known as an equity court or chancery court, is a court authorized to apply principles of equity rather than principles of law to cases brought before it. These courts originated from petitions to the Lord Chancellor of England and primarily heard claims for relief other than damages, such as specific performance and ...
Earl of Oxford's case (1615) 21 ER 485 is a foundational case for the common law world, that held equity (equitable principle) takes precedence over the common law.. The Lord Chancellor held: "The Cause why there is Chancery is, for that Mens Actions are so divers[e] and infinite, that it is impossible to make any general Law which may aptly meet with every particular Act, and not fail in some ...
In The Concept of Law, H. L. A. Hart argued that law is a "system of rules"; [35] John Austin said law was "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction"; [36] Ronald Dworkin describes law as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice in his text titled Law's Empire; [37] and Joseph Raz argues law is an "authority" to ...