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| Authored by: IANALitj on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 10:58 AM EDT |
I don't see how law and equity can ever completely merge.
The law and equity courts can merge, so that the same judge in the same
courtroom can hear cases that are purely legal, purely equitable, or mixed.
(This case is very mixed.)
Merging legal and equitable principles will be more difficult. Start with jury
trials. In federal courts in the U.S., a constitutional amendment over 200
years old establishes a right to trial by jury for legal cases involving over
$20 (which was not a so trivial an amount then as it is now). There is no trial
by jury in equity. Unless you want to provide trial by jury for equitable
actions, or amend the constitution, you will have to continue to dissect each
case into its legal and equitable parts.
There are further problems with the idea of simply merging equity and law.
There is a wikipedia article on "maxims of equity" that lists 19
maxims and states that these are among the traditional maxims. These apply when
a court is considering equitable matters, and they can be dispositive. An
over-eager plaintiff who sues on a claim in equity can be completely up-ended by
maxims such as "One who seeks equity must do equity" and "One who
comes into equity must come with clean hands." It is harder to argue that
one who brings an action at law will be thrown out of court for inequitable
behavior or unclean hands. What would happen to these maxims if law and equity
were merged?
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