Maxims of Equity - Where Equities Are Equal, The Law Will Prevail

Where Equities Are Equal, The Law Will Prevail

Equity will provide no specific remedies where the parties are equal, or where neither has been wronged.

The significance of this maxim is that applicants to the chancellors often did so because of the formal pleading of the law courts, and the lack of flexibility they offered to litigants. Law courts and legislature, as lawmakers, through the limits of the substantive law they had created, thus inculcated a certain status quo that affected private conduct, and private ordering of disputes. Equity, in theory, had the power to alter that status quo, ignoring the limits of legal relief, or legal defenses. But courts of equity were hesitant to do so. This maxim reflects the hesitancy to upset the legal status quo. If in such a case, the law created no cause of action, equity would provide no relief; if the law did provide relief, then the applicant would be obligated to bring a legal, rather than equitable action. This maxim overlaps with the previously mentioned "equity follows the law."