Court of equity

A court of equity, equity court or chancery court is a court that is authorized to apply principles of equity, as opposed to those of law, to cases brought before it.

Further information: Court of Chancery

These courts began with petitions to the Lord Chancellor of England. Equity courts "handled lawsuits and petitions requesting remedies other than damages, such as writs, injunctions, and specific performance". Most equity courts were eventually "merged with courts of law".[1]

Some states in the early republic of the United States followed the English tradition of maintaining separate courts for law and equity. Others vested their courts with both types of jurisdiction, as the US Congress did with respect to the federal courts.[2]

United States bankruptcy courts are the one example of a US federal court which operates as a court of equity.[1] Some common law jurisdictions—such as the U.S. states of Delaware, Mississippi, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Tennessee—preserve the distinctions between law and equity and between courts of law and courts of equity (or, in New Jersey, between the civil and general equity divisions of the New Jersey Superior Court).[3]

See also

References
  1. "court of equity". Legal Dictionary. TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  2. "History of the Federal Judiciary – Equity Jurisdiction in the Federal Courts". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
  3. "Mercer Civil Division". New Jersey Courts. 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
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