The Doctrine and Practice of Equity; Or, a Concise Outline of Proceedings in the High Court of Chancery Designed Principally for the Use of Students (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. ACCOUNT. Although a party filing his bill in a court of Equity in cases of an account, may be entitled to his remedy at common law, yet the advantages of proceeding in equity in almost all matters of this nature, have been so sensibly felt by a long and steady experience, that by degrees this court has obtained a concurrent jurisdiction with those of common law. It is said that the ground upon which equity first began to assume this power, was the difficulty of obtaining complete justice in the courts of common law, for although the action of account lies at common law, yet when the accounts are brought before the auditors of these courts there is so much difficulty and delay in settling them, especially if they be long and intricate, that recourse is now seldom had at law for that purpose; a court of Equity having the advantage by its mode of proceeding being peculiarly adapted for the task of investigating matters of account as between adverse parties, and compelling the payment of whatever balance is found due to the party entitled (a). The objection to a court of law for taking a long arithmetical account is pretty clearly laid down by Mr. Justice Taunton in Ferguson v. Sprang (3 New and Man 665), which was a question of usury where A, in consideration of 200 (a) Mitf. p. 120. 4th Edit. granted to B an annuity or rent charge for 60 years charged upon certain messuages. " It is difficult," says the learned judge, " for us to say by how much this reservation of 20 a year for 60 years will exceed the principal and interest at 5 per cent. We cannot compute it. It is too difficult a question for the court to take judicial notice of. If this were a question, whether ten were more than five, or that two and two made four, the court would take judicial not...