Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 11 - Lex Sequitur Equitatem

  • from Part II - Fusion and Fission in Doctrine and Practice
  • Edited by John C. P. Goldberg, Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, Henry E. Smith, Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, P. G. Turner, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Equity and Law
    Published online:
    26 July 2019
    Print publication:
    01 August 2019, pp 254-279

  • Summary

    Recent court decisions apply the received understanding among lawyers and historians of the origins and development of the penalty doctrine in contract law. This is that the doctrine first developed in the Court of Chancery, applying equitable principles, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and that the relief was found so useful and became so routine that the common courts began to follow the practice in equity by the late seventeenth century. Thereafter, the common law subsumed the field. This chapter shows otherwise. Based on a fuller study than before of the printed and manuscript source material, it is shown that the common law courts never developed a lasting doctrine against penalties as such. Rather, they gained statutory powers to grant relief equivalent to that available in equity courts. No judge-made common law doctrine of relief from penalties survives today, and this is no need for concern. Despite their false portrayal as uncertain and constantly changing, the doctrines of equity are stable, well-known and well-attuned to application by courts in modern conditions.