REFERENCES

The following are excerpts shinning different lights on difference facets of Equity.
(If you know of other great ones, send this way.)

*     *     *     *     *

“In the field of jurisprudence, equity is the particular body of law, developed in the English Court of Chancery, with the general purpose of providing legal remedies for cases wherein common law cannot fairly resolve the disputed legal matter. Conceptually, equity was part of the historical origins of the system of common law of England, yet is a field of law separate from common law, because equity has its own unique rules and principles as administered by courts of equity.”

— Wikipedia (2024)

“And thus in chancery, every particular case stands upon its own circumstances; and although the common law will not decree against the general rule of law, yet chancery doth, so as the example introduce not a general mischief; Every matter, therefore, that happens inconsistent with the design of the legislature, or is contrary to natural justice, may find relief here. For no man can be obliged to anything contrary to the law of nature; and indeed no man in his sense can be presumed willing to oblige another to it;” 

— Henry Ballow, Treatise of Equity (1795)

"The enforcement or protection of a private right, or the prevention of or redress for an injury thereto, shall be obtained by a suit in equity, in all cases where there is not a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law; and may be obtained thereby in all cases where courts of equity have been used to exercise concurrent jurisdiction with courts of law, unless otherwise specially provided in this chapter.”

“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all causes, both at law and in equity. The distinction between actions at law, and suits in equity, and the distinct forms of action, and suits heretofore existing are abolished, and there shall be in this state but one form of civil action for enforcement of private rights, and the redress, or prevention, of private wrongs which shall be the same at law and equity and which shall be denominated a civil action.”

— John Pomeroy, A Treatise on Equity Jurisprudence (1905)

“The principles on which the Chancellor based his decisions were those of Honesty, Equity and Conscience. By Conscience was meant those obligations one person is under to another to exercise that good faith the other has a right to expect. On an application to Parliament for redress, the petition was referred to the Chancellor, with the command: ‘Let there be done, by authority of the Parliament, that which right and reason, and good faith and good conscience, demand in the case.’”

— Henry Gibson, A Treatise on Suits in Chancery (1907)

"Equity jurisdiction" as distinguished on the one hand from the general power to decide matters at all, and on the other hand, from the jurisdiction ‘at law’ or ‘common-law jurisdiction,’ is the power to hear certain kinds and classes of civil causes according to the principles of the method and procedure adopted by the courts of chancery, and to decide them in accordance with the doctrines and rules of equity jurisprudence, which decision may involve either (1) the determination of the equitable rights, estates and interests of the parties to such causes, or (2) the granting of equitable remedies.

Equity jurisdiction embraces both cases for the maintenance or protection of primary rights, estates and interests purely equitable, and cases for the maintenance or protection of primary rights, estates and interests purely legal; and in the latter class of cases the remedies granted may be of a kind which are peculiar to equity courts, such as, reformation, cancellation, injunction, etc., or remedies of a kind which are administered by courts of law, as the recovery of money, or of the possession of specific real and personal property. The distinction between the exclusive and concurrent jurisdiction of equity represents the fact that the two kinds of remedies, equitable and legal, may, under proper circumstances, be obtained in the class of cases that involve the recovery of money…"

— Hutchens v. Maxicenters (1989)

“Equity is, or should be, a living, changing thing, forever adapting itself to new conditions; in its ultimate sense it is a supreme law, acting upon and modifying codes, statutes, and case law. The avoidance of the freezing of law into inflexible rules is one of its chief purposes.”

“Equity as a universal moral principle supplies the required certainty by basing its decisions on Principles, rather than on rules which may have the defect of undesirable rigidity. As long as these principles are sound, equity is sound. Such principles must be universal, always, and beyond any dispute as to their validity. And the chief principle upon which equity is founded, clearly, is the principle that justice must be done, despite the seeming finality of any rule of law, if that rule actually works an injustice.” 

Equity, certainly in its historical moral sense, and hopefully in its administrative sense, is the principal technique thus far developed to make certain that law, always will be readily adaptable for, and directed toward, the achievement of justice.”

— Howard Olek, Historical Nature of Equity Jurisprudence, Fordham Law Review (1951)

“Classes of Rights. — Laying out of view the rules which form the 'public law' and the 'criminal law,' all the commands and rules which constitute the ‘private civil law’ create two classes of rights and duties, the ‘primary’ and the ‘remedial.’ The primary rights and duties form the body of the law; they include all the rights and obligations of property, of contract, and of personal status; they are the very end and object of all law. If mankind were so constituted that disobedience to legal rules was impossible, then the law would be entirely made up of the rules which create these primary rights and duties. But since all these primary rights and duties may be violated, another branch of the law becomes necessary which may enforce obedience by means of the ‘Remedies’ which it provides. All possible remedies are either substitutes or equivalents given to the injured party in place of his original primary rights which have been broken, or they are the means by which he can maintain and protect his primary rights in their actual form and condition. Remedial rights are those which a person has to obtain some remedy when his primary rights have been violated by another. Remedial duties are those devolving upon the wrong-doer in such case to give the proper remedy prescribed by law.

"Primary and remedial rights and duties stand towards each other in the following relations.

"Every command or rule of the private civil law creates a primary right in one individual, and a primary duty corresponding thereto resting upon another person or number of persons. These rights and duties are, of course, innumerable in their variety, nature, and extent. If a person upon whom a primary duty rests towards another fails to perform that duty, and thereby violates the other's primary right, there at once arise the remedial right and duty. The one whose primary right has been violated immediately acquires a secondary right to obtain an appropriate remedy from the wrong-doer, while the wrong-doer himself becomes subjected to the secondary duty of giving or suffering such Remedy. It is the function and object of courts, both of law and of equity, to directly enforce these remedial rights and duties.

"Equity, as a branch of the national jurisprudence, and so far as it differs from the law, consists in fact of two parts, two different kinds of rules and rights. First, it contains a mass of rules which create primary rights and duties — entirely irrespective of the remedies — which are different from the corresponding rules, rights, and duties, with respect to the same subject-matter, contained in and enforced by the law. Secondly, it contains another mass of rules defining and conferring a variety of special remedies and remedial rights, both of which are to a very great extent unknown to the law. These remedies and rights to them are peculiarly ‘equitable,' in contradistinction to those of the law, and irrespective of any difference in the primary rights for the violation of which they are granted.

“The actual remedies which a court of equity gives depend upon the nature and object of the trust; sometimes they are specific in their character, and of a kind which the law courts cannot administer, but often they are of the same general kind as those obtained in legal actions, being mere recoveries of money. A court of equity will always by its decree declare the rights, interest, or estate of the cestui que trust, and will compel the trustee to do all the specific acts required of him by the terms of the trust. It often happens that the final relief to be obtained by the cestui que trust consists in the recovery of money. This remedy the courts of equity will always decree when necessary, whether it is confined to the payment of a single specific sum, or involves an accounting by the trustee for all that he has done in pursuance of the trust, and a distribution of the trust moneys among all the beneficiaries who are entitled to share therein.”

“Circuit courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions. The distinction between actions at law and suits in equity is abolished, and one ‘civil action’ is established for all private rights and remedies.

“There shall be one form of action for the maintenance of all private rights and the granting of all private remedies, called the civil action.”

— A Treatise on Equity Jurisprudence, by Pomeroy (1881)