Maxims of Equity - Equity Follows The Law

Equity Follows The Law

Acquits sequitur legem

Equity will not allow a remedy that is contrary to law.

The court of Chancery never claimed to override the courts of common law. Story states "where a rule, either of the common or the statute law is direct, and governs the case with all its circumstances, or the particular point, a court of equity is as much bound by it as a court of law, and can as little justify a departure from it." According to Edmund Henry Turner Snell, “It is only when there is some important circumstance disregarded by the common law rules that equity interferes.” Cardozo wrote in his dissent in Graf v. Hope Building Corporation, 254 N.Y 1 at 9 (1930), "Equity works as a supplement for law and does not supersede the prevailing law."

Maitland says, “We ought not to think of common law and equity as of two rival systems." "Equity had come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. Every jot and every tittle of law was to be obeyed, but when all this had been done yet something might be needful, something that equity would require." The goal of law and equity was the same but due to historical reason they chose a different path. Equity respected every word of law and every right at law but where the law was defective, in those cases, equity provides equitable right and remedies.