Equity
This term refers to a particular division within the English legal system. As the common law progressed, there developed a ..................... among judges, typified by a reluctance to deal with matters that were not or could not be processed in the proper form of action. Such a refusal to deal with injustices because they did not ........................ the particular procedural and formal constraints, led to much .......................... with the legal system. A modern analogy would be with a company or Government department that refused to deal with your ................ because none of its existing ...................... was suitable even though you had obviously suffered a ............... In addition, the common law courts were perceived to be slow, highly technical and very expensive, and a trivial mistake in ................ a case could lose a good argument. The only available remedy was ..................., but such monetary compensation was not always the best remedy. How could people obtain justice, if not in the common law courts? The response was the development of equity.
Claimants (then called plaintiffs) unable to gain access to the common law courts could
................ direct to the sovereign, and such ................ would be passed for consideration and decision to the Lord Chancellor, who acted as ‘the King's conscience’. The Chancellor based his decisions on principles of natural justice and ...................., making a decision on what seemed ‘right’ in the particular case rather than following previous precedents. He would look beyond documents which were considered legally ................. by the common law courts. To make sure his decisions were fair, new procedures, such as a .................. requiring a witness to attend court, and new remedies, such as injunctions and ........................................, were developed. This resulted in the emergence of a specific court, a court of Chancery,