Equity simply defined means justice. A judge must interpret a law statue literally. This does not always give justice. For example, the owner of an adjoining lot may be digging a basement pit so close to the house on the next lot that the house is in
danger of toppling over. The law, provided that house does topple over, will allow the injured party monetary damages. Justice demands, however, that some remedy be provided whereby the man can save his house. A court of equity has the power to issue the injunction to prevent the adjoining property owner from endangering his neighbors house. Hundreds of similar situations developed in the early days of the common law. Judges tended to interpret the common law so strictly that hundreds of wrongs
were left without a remedy. Equity law developed in a fashion similar to the early common-law to give relief where the common law was inadequate. Judges decided case accordingly to their concept of justice. These courts decisions became precedents and these precedents now constitute equity law. Equity law, then, was intended to grant relief where the law courts could or would not give an adequate remedy to litigants. This law by judicial precedents differs from other law by judicial decisions
and that the latter arises from the court's interpretation of a constitutional or statutory law, while equity decisions are interpretations of principles of justice. Equity rules became in time a well settled as the rules of the common law courts. College law, 4th edition, published 1951.
