Eq´uity

(Lat. aequus , fair, equal), in English law, the system of supplemental law administered in certain courts, founded upon defined rules, recorded precedents, and established principles, the judges, however, liberally expounding 281 and developing them to meet new exigencies. While it aims at a isting the defects of the common law, by extending relief to those rights of property which the strict law does not recognize, and by giving more ample and distributive redre than the ordinary tribunals afford, equity by no means either controls, mitigates, or supersedes the common law, but rather guides itself by its analogies, and does not a ume any power to subvert its doctrines. The Court of Chancery was formerly in England the especial court of equity, but large powers were by the Judicature Act of 1873 given to all the divisions of the Supreme Court to administer equity, although many matters of equitable jurisdiction are still left to the chancery division in the first instance.— Bibliography : F. T. White and O. O. Tudor, Leading Cases in Equity ; C. Thwaites, Student's Guide to Equity .