The fusion of law and equity in common law systems was a crucial moment in the development of the modern law. In this volume leading scholars assess the significance of the fusion of law and equity from comparative, doctrinal, historical and theoretical perspectives.

This book explores the 'clean hands' doctrine, a safety valve in the legal system designed to correct injustice.

The law of equity is a unique junction where doctrinal private law, moral theory, and social perceptions of justice meet. By exploring the general principles that underlie equity's intervention in the common law, the book argues that equity should be preserved as a separate body of law which aims to align moral and legal duties in private law.

The law of Equity, a latecomer to the field of private law theory, raises fundamental questions about the relationships between law and morality, the nature of rights, and the extent to which we are willing to compromise on the rule of law ideal to achieve social goals. In this volume, leading scholars come together to address these and other questions about underlying principles of Equity and its relationship to the common law: What relationships, if any, are there between the legal, philosophical, and moral senses of 'equity'? Does Equity form a second-order constraint on law? If so, is its operation at odds with the rule of law? Do the various theories of Equity require some kind of separation of law and equity-and, if they do, what kind of separation? The volume further sheds light on some of the most topical questions of jurisprudence that are embedded in the debate around 'fusion'. A noteworthy addition to the Philosophical Foundations series, this volume is an important contribution to an ongoing debate, and will be of value to students and scholars across the discipline.

This second edition of Sarah Worthington's Equity maintains the clear ambitions of the first. It sets out the basic principles of equity, and illustrates them by reference to commercial and domestic examples of their operation. The book comprehensively and succinctly describes the role of equity in creating and developing rights and obligations, remedies and procedures that differ in important ways from those provided by the common law itself. Worthington delivers a complete reworking of the material traditionally described as equity. In doing this, she provides a thorough examination of the fundamental principles underpinning equity's most significant incursions into the modern law of property, contract, tort, and unjust enrichment. In addition, she exposes the possibilities, and the need, for coherent substantive integration of common law and equity. Such integration she perceives as crucial to the continuing success of the modern common law legal system. This book provides an accessible and elementary exploration of equity's place in our modern legal system, whilst also tackling the most taxing and controversial questions which our dual system of law and equity raises.