Eq"ui*ty (?), n.; pl.
Equities (#). [F. équité, L.
aequitas, fr. aequus even, equal. See Equal.]
1. Equality of rights; natural justice or right;
the giving, or desiring to give, to each man his due, according to
reason, and the law of God to man; fairness in determination of
conflicting claims; impartiality.
Christianity secures both the private interests of men
and the public peace, enforcing all justice and
equity.
Tillotson.
2. (Law) An equitable claim; an equity
of redemption; as, an equity to a settlement, or wife's
equity, etc.
I consider the wife's equity to be too well
settled to be shaken.
Kent.
3. (Law) A system of jurisprudence,
supplemental to law, properly so called, and complemental of
it.
Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a
refined science which no human faculties could master without long
and intense application.
Macaulay.
&fist; Equitable jurisprudence in England and in the United States
grew up from the inadequacy of common-law forms to secure justice in
all cases; and this led to distinct courts by which equity was
applied in the way of injunctions, bills of discovery, bills for
specified performance, and other processes by which the merits of a
case could be reached more summarily or more effectively than by
common-law suits. By the recent English Judicature Act (1873),
however, the English judges are bound to give effect, in common-law
suits, to all equitable rights and remedies; and when the rules of
equity and of common law, in any particular case, conflict, the rules
of equity are to prevail. In many jurisdictions in the United States,
equity and common law are thus blended; in others distinct equity
tribunals are still maintained. See Chancery.
Equity of redemption (Law), the
advantage, allowed to a mortgageor, of a certain or reasonable time
to redeem lands mortgaged, after they have been forfeited at law by
the nonpayment of the sum of money due on the mortgage at the
appointed time. Blackstone.
Syn. -- Right; justice; impartiality; rectitude; fairness;
honesty; uprightness. See Justice.
