In the early history of the law, the sense affixed to this word was exceedingly vague and uncertain. This was owing, in part, to the fact, that the chancellors of those days were either statesmen or ecclesiastics, perhaps not very scrupulous in the exercise of power. It was then asserted that equity was bounded by no certain limits or rules, and that it was alone controlled by conscience and natural justice. 2. In a moral sense, that is called equity which is founded, ex oequo et bono, in natural justice, in honesty, and in right. In an enlarged. legal view, equity, in its true and genuine meaning, is the soul and spirit of the law; positive law is construed, and rational law is made by it. In this, equity is made synonymous with justice; in that, to the true and sound interpretation of the rule. 3 Bl. Com. 429. This equity is justly said to be a supplement to the laws; but it must be directed by science. The Roman law will furnish him with sure guides, and safe rules. In that code will be found, fully developed, the first principles and the most important consequences of natural right. From the moment when principles of decision came to be acted upon in chancery, says Mr. Justice Story, the Roman law furnished abundant materials to erect a superstructure, at once solid, convenient and lofty, adapted to human wants, and enriched by the aid of human wisdom, experience and learning. 3. But equity has a more restrained and qualified meaning. The remedies for the redress of wrongs, and for the enforcement of rights, are distinguished into two classes, first, those which are administered in courts of common law; and, secondly, those which are administered in courts of equity. Rights which are recognized and protected, and wrongs which are redressed by the former courts, are called legal rights and legal injuries. Rights which are recognized and protected, and wrongs which are redressed by the latter courts only, are called equitable rights and equitable injuries The former are said to be rights and wrongs at common law, and the remedies, therefore, are remedies at common law; the latter are said to be rights and wrongs in equity, and the remedies, therefore, are remedies in equity. Equity jurisprudence may, therefore, properly be said to be that portion of remedial justice which is exclusively administered by a court of equity, as contradistinguished from that remedial justice, which is exclusively administered by a court of law.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
1. In its broadest and most general signification, this term denotes the spirit and the habit of fairness, justness, and right dealing which would regulate the intercourse of men with men,the rule of doing to all others as we desire them to do to us; or, as it is expressed by Justinian, “to live honestly, to harm nobody, to render to every man his due.” Inst. 1, 1, 3. It is therefore the synonym of natural right or justice. But in this sense its obligation is ethical rather than jural, and its discussion belongs to the sphere of morals. It is grounded in the precepts of the conscience, not in any sanction of positive law. 2. In a more restricted sense, the word denotes equal and impartial justice as between two persons whose rights or claims are in conflict; justice, that is, as ascertained by natural reason or ethical insight, but independent of the formulated body of law. This is not a technical meaning of the term, except in so far as courts which administer equity seek to discover it by the agencies above mentioned, or apply it beyond the strict lines of positive law. See Miller v. Kennist on, 86 Me. 550, 30 Atl. 114. 3. In one of its technical meanings, equity is a body of jurisprudence, or field of jurisdiction, differing in its origin, theory, and methods from the common law. It is a body of rules existing by the side of the original civil law, founded on distinct principles, and claiming incidentally to supersede the civil law in virtue of a superior sanctity inherent in those principles. Maine. Ana Law, 27. “As old rules become too narrow, or are felt to be out of harmony with advancing civilization, a machinery is needed for their gradual enlargement and adaptation to new views of society. One mode of accomplishing this object on a large scale, without appearing to disregard existing law, is the introduction, by the prerogative of some high functionary, of a more perfect body of rules, discoverable in his judicial conscience, which is to stand side by side with the law of the land, overriding it in case of conflict, as on some title of inherent superiority, but not purporting to repeal it. Such a body of rules has been called ‘Equity.'” Holl. Jur. 59. “Equity,” in its technical sense, contradistinguished from natural and universal equity or justice, may well be described- as a “portion of justice” or natural equity, not embodied in legislative enactments, or in the rules of common law, yet modified by a due regard thereto and to the complex relations and conveniences of an artificial state of society, and administered in regard to cases where the particular rights, in respect of which relief is sought come within some general class of rights enforced at law, or may be enforced without detriment or inconvenience to the community; but where, as to such particular rights, the ordinary courts of law cannot, or originally did not, clearly afford relief. Rob. Eq. 4. In a still more restricted sense, it is a system of jurisprudence, or branch of remedial justice, administered by certain tribunals, distinct from the common law courts, and empowered to decree “equity” in the sense last above given. Here it becomes a complex of well settled and well understood rules, principles, and precedents. See Hamilton v. Avery, 20 Tex. 633; Dalton v. Vander veer, 8 Misc. Rep. 484, 29 N. Y. Supp. 342; Parmeter v. Bourne, 8 Wash. 45, 35 Pac. 586; Ellis v. Davis, 109 U. S. 485, 3 Sup. Ct 327, 27 L. Ed. 1006. “The meaning of the word ‘equity,’ as used in its technical sense in English jurisprudence, comes back to this: that it is simply a term descriptive of a certain field of jurisdiction exercised, in the English system, by certain courts, and of which the extent and boundaries are not marked by lines founded upon principle so much as by the features of the original constitution of the English scheme of remedial law, and the accidents of its development.” Bisp. Eq.