The Body of Liberties was a code of 100 fundamental laws established by the General Court of Massachusetts in December 1641. Previously there had been no written law in the colony, and justice was administered wholly upon principles of equity. The Body of Liberties was drafted by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the church at Ipswich. It laid down the fundamental principles of the sacredness of life, liberty, property and reputation and prescribed general rules for judicial proceedings. Research Body of Liberties
Common Law is the unwritten law, the law that receives its binding force from immemorial usage and universal reception, in distinction from the written or statute law; sometimes from the civil or canon law; and occasionally from the lex mercatoria, or commercial and maritime jurisprudence. It consists of that body of rules, principles, and customs which have been received from former times, and by which courts have been guided in their judicial decisions. The evidence of this law is to be found in the reports of those decisions and the records of the courts. Some of these rules may have originated in edicts or statutes which are now lost, or in the terms and conditions of particular grants or charters; but it is quite certain that many of them originated in judicial decisions founded on natural justice and equity, or on local customs. It is contrasted with (1) the statute law contained in acts of parliament; (2) equity, which is also an accretion of judicial decisions, but formed by a new tribunal, which first appeared when the common law had reached its full growth; and (3) the civil law inherited by modern Europe from the Roman Empire. Wherever statute law, however, runs counter to common law, the latter is entirely overruled; but common law, on the other hand, asserts its pre-eminence where equity is opposed to it. Research Common Law
In English law, equity is the system of supplemental law administered in certain courts, founded upon defined rules, recorded precedents, and established principles, the judges, however, liberally expounding and developing them to meet new exigences. While it aims to assist the defects of the common law, by extending relief to those rights of property which the strict law does not recognize, and by giving more ample and distributive redress than the ordinary tribunals afford, equity by no means either controls, mitigates, or supersedes the common law, but rather guides itself by its analogies, and does not assume any power to subvert its doctrines. The Court of Chancery was formerly in England the especial court of equity, but large powers were by the Judicature Act of 1873 given to all the divisions of the Supreme Court to administer equity, although many matters of equitable jurisdiction are still left to the chancery division in the first instance. Research Equity
Shanley Vs Haney was an English legal case of 1762. The case in equity was brought by an administrator to recover money given by his intestate to a black man brought to England from America as a slave. The suit was dismissed by LordNorthington, who held that a slave became free as soon as he set foot on English territory. Research Shanley Vs Haney
Sir Felix Aylmer (real name Felix Aylmer Jones) was a British actor. He was born in 1889 and died in 1979. He was for many years president of the British actors' association, 'Equity'. Research Felix Aylmer
Beneficial interest is the right to the use and enjoyment of property, rather than to its bare legal ownership. For example, if property is held in trust, the trustee has the legal title but the beneficiaries have the
beneficial interest in equity. The beneficiaries, not the trustee, are entitled to any income from the property. Research Beneficial Interest
A blue chip is an ordinary share in a substantial company with a well-known name, a good growthrecord, and large assets. Blue chips are not precisely definable, but the main part of an institution's equityportfolio will consist of blue chips. Research Blue Chip
Equitable interest is an interest in, or ownership of, property that is recognized by equity but not by the common law. A beneficiary under a trust has an equitable interest. Any disposal of an equitable interest (e.g. a sale) must be in writing. Some equitable interests in land must be registered or they will be lost if the legal title to the land is sold. Similarly, equitable interests in other property will be lost if the legal title is sold to a bona fide purchaser for value who has no notice of the equitable interest. In such circumstances the owner of the equitable interest may claim damages from the person who sold the legal title. Research Equitable Interest
In law, Equity of Redemption is the advantage allowed to a mortgager of a reasonable time to redeem an estate mortgaged, when it is of greater value than the sum for which it is mortgaged. Research Equity of Redemption
The Exchequer Court was established during the reign of Henry I to deal with questions of finance. It later took upon itself judicial business. The equity business of the Exchequer was transferred to the Court of Chancery in 1842, and in 1873 became the Exchequer division of the High Court of Justice. Research Exchequer Court
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Body of Liberties
