Editing Maxims of equity (section)

===Equity follows the law<span class="anchor" id="Equity follows the laws"></span>===
This maxim, also expressed as ''Aequitas sequitur legem'', means more fully that "equity will not allow a remedy that is contrary to law."

The [[Court of Chancery]] never claimed to override the courts of common law. [[Joseph Story|Story]] states "where a rule, either of the common or the statute law is direct, and governs the case with all its circumstances, or the particular point, a court of equity is as much bound by it as a court of law, and can as little justify a departure from it."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Story|first1=Joseph|last2=Randell|first2=Alfred Edward
|title=Story on Equity|edition= third English|publisher=Sweet & Maxwell|year= 1920 |page= 34}}</ref> According to Edmund Henry Turner Snell, "It is only when there is some important circumstance disregarded by the common law rules that equity interferes."<ref>{{cite book|title=Snell's Principles of Equity|edition = 20 |last1=Snell|first1=Edmund Henry Turner|year=1929 |publisher= Sweet & Maxwell|location= London
|page=24}} quoted in Williams, James (1932). [https://books.google.com/books?id=0Yc6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA166 ''The Statute of Frauds''], p. 166.</ref> [[Benjamin Cardozo|Cardozo]] wrote in his dissent in ''Graf v. Hope Building Corporation'', 254 N.Y 1 at 9 (1930), "Equity works as a supplement for law and does not supersede the prevailing law."

[[Frederic William Maitland|Maitland]] says, "We ought not to think of common law and equity as of two rival systems."{{sfnp|Maitland|1909|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=CTk9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA19 19]}} "Equity [[Matthew 5:17|had come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it]]. [[Matthew 5:18|Every jot and every tittle]] of law was to be obeyed, but when all this had been done yet something might be needful, something that equity would require."{{sfnp|Maitland|1909|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=CTk9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA17 17]}} The goal of law and equity was the same but due to historical reasons they chose a different path. Equity respected every word of law and every right at law but where the law was defective, in those cases, equity provides equitable right and remedies.

In modern-day England and Wales, this maxim no longer applies; as per section 49(1) of the [[Senior Courts Act 1981]], the law follows equity instead:

:Subject to the provisions of this or any other Act, every court exercising jurisdiction in England or Wales in any civil cause or matter shall continue to administer law and equity on the basis that, wherever there is any conflict or variance between the rules of equity and the rules of the common law with reference to the same matter, the rules of equity shall prevail.<ref>{{Cite legislation UK 
  | type = act
  | year = 1981
  | chapter = 54
  | act = Senior Courts Act 1981
  | section = 49
}}</ref>