Christopher Columbus Langdell

“ It is true that every obligation (being a vinculum juris) has in it a legal element, and that those obligations which do not originate in contract are pure creatures of the law: yet, in creating obligations, the only object of the State is to see that all persons within its jurisdiction act justly towards others, while, in imposing duties, it acts from motives of policy, or at least it imposes them as a part of the system of law which it adopts, and without reference to any particular case or any particular persons. ”

“ On the one hand, equity never excludes either of the other systems. It is true that equity alone exercises jurisdiction over equitable rights; but that is not because equity claims any monopoly of such jurisdiction,—it is because the other systems decline to exercise it, they not recognizing equitable rights. On the other hand, equity is never excluded by either of the other systems ”

“ In all such cases, it is very important that it be clearly understood that the tort is not to any specific thing; for, otherwise, one will be in danger of deceiving himself as to the nature of the right injured, — of persuading himself, indeed, that the injury is to a right which in truth has no existence. Thus, in cases of infringement of trade-mark or good-will, it has often happened that, as it was assumed that some specific thing must be injured, so it was concluded that a trade-mark or good-will is a species of incorporeal property, — a notion which clearly has no solid foundation. ”

“ Equity cannot, therefore, create personal rights which are unknown to the law; nor can it say that a res, which by law has no owner, is a subject of ownership, nor that a res belongs to A which by law belongs to B; nor can it impose upon a person or a thing an obligation which by law does not exist; nor can it declare that a right arising from an obligation is assignable, if by law it is not assignable. To say that equity can do any of these things would be to say that equity is a separate and independent system of law, or that it is superior to law. ”

“ If there is no element of equity in a given right, neither is there any in the infringement of that right; for what is an infringement of a right depends entirely upon the extent of the right. If, therefore, equity could declare that a right has been infringed when by law it has not, it would thus enlarge the right of one man, and curtail that of another. ”

“ One answer to this question may be found in the notion which has extensively prevailed, that a contract to convey land is in equity an actual conveyance; that there is in equity no difference between an actual conveyance and a contract to convey. [21] But how did such a notion ever become prevalent? It derives no countenance from anything that is actually done in suits for specific performance; and yet it is only in suits for specific performance that it can ever be maintained that the ownership of land has been changed in equity by a mere agreement to change it. ”

“ The State also commands every person within its limits to do every act which the State makes it his duty to do. Indeed, to command one to do a thing, and to make it his duty to do it, are one and the same thing, each necessarily implying the other. Moreover, as all duties are affirmative, all commands to do one's duty are also affirmative, and these are the only affirmative commands which the State issues. It follows, therefore, that, as every breach of duty is a negative tort, so every negative tort is a breach of duty. ”

“ The law may, however, refuse to recognize a right, because, if a right were recognized, the law would have no adequate means of enforcing it, or no means of enforcing it without giving the plaintiff more than he would be entitled to, and thus doing injustice to the defendant; and, in such a case, if the reason why the law refuses to recognize the right does not exist in equity, the right may be recognized in equity without any violation of law, though in strictness the right will then be equitable,—not legal. ”

“ How can one person give another a negative right against himself? Only by incurring a negative personal obligation to that other. How can the State give a negative right to one person against another? It is neither easy nor necessary to specify all the possible ways in which this can be done. How does the State in fact give a negative right to one person against another? Only by giving it against all persons within the limits of its territory, or some portion of that territory, i.e., by giving a monopoly or exclusive right, as already explained. ”

“ Indeed, as real obligations consist merely in authorizing something to be done, the doing of which the obligor (being an inanimate thing) has no power to prevent or even obstruct, it may be correctly said that a real obligation is incapable of being broken; and, therefore, every infringement of the right created by a real obligation, whether it be by the owner of the res, which is subject to the obligation, or by a stranger to the obligation, is necessarily an affirmative tort. ”

“ If we have three systems of substantive law, each exercising jurisdiction over those rights which are of its own creation, and if equity is a system of remedial law only, how does it happen that equity has any jurisdiction? ”

“ Although a copyright is in strictness of law a pure monopoly, yet it ought to be regarded, not as a favor conferred, but as a partial atonement for the wrong done by the State in putting an end, upon publication, to the common-law right of an author, musical composer, or artist, in his own creation. ”

“ When it is said that a contract creates an obligation, it is only meant that the law annexes an obligation to every contract. A contract may be well enough defined as an agreement to which the law annexes an obligation. Strictly, also, a tort gives rise to an obligation as much as a contract; namely, an obligation to repair the tort or to make satisfaction for it; but this is an obligation which the law imposes upon a tort-feasor merely by way of giving a remedy for the tort. In the same way the breach of a contract gives rise to a new obligation to repair or make satisfaction for the breach. ”

“ If, therefore, that one thing has a value in the eyes of the person who contracted for it, which cannot be measured by money, or a greater money value than it can properly have in the eyes of a jury, it is clear that a compensation in money will not be an adequate substitute for the thing itself. But here an important question arises, namely, whether the jurisdiction of equity will depend upon the nature of the thing contracted for, or upon the views and intentions of the person who contracts for it in the particular case. ”

“ Thus, if a debtor fraudulently procure from his creditor a release of the debt, or procure such release for a consideration which he afterwards refuses or fails to pay or perform, equity will impose upon him an obligation not to use the release as a defence to an action or suit by the creditor to recover the debt. So equity will impose upon a defendant to an action or suit an obligation not to use a defence which will prevent a trial of the case upon its merits, or by which the course of justice will otherwise be obstructed. ”

“ The power of a court of equity to enforce specific performance is of course limited by the defendant’s ability to perform; nor can a defendant be imprisoned for not performing a decree which he is unable to perform, as he is guilty of no contempt. If, therefore, the cooperation of a third person be necessary to the performance of a contract, it is a sufficient excuse for the defendant that such third person refuses to coöperate, even though the defendant expressly bound himself to procure his coöperation ”

“ A single material thing may be owned by several persons, and that too without any division of it, either actual or supposed, each person owning an undivided share of it; and in that case each owner has a right of property just as absolute as if he were the sole owner of the thing. In case of land also, the ownership, instead of being divided into shares, may be divided among several persons in respect to the time of their enjoyment, one of them having the right of immediate enjoyment, and the others having respectively successive rights of future enjoyment. ”

“ Hence, if equity assume jurisdiction over such a contract at all, it must assume jurisdiction over the entire contract, and give full relief. It cannot give relief as to a part of the contract, and leave the plaintiff to sue at law as to the remainder. It would be a wrong to a defendant to permit a single cause of action to be made the subject of two actions against him. Moreover, equity can never permit an action at law to be brought upon a cause of action which has been the subject of a decree in equity. ”

“ Of absolute rights, therefore, none of those which are personal can ever be the subjects of equitable obligations, while nearly all rights which consist in ownership can be the subjects of such obligations. ”

“ The interference of equity to prevent the infringement of patents and copyrights is attended with none of the peculiar difficulties which so often occur in cases of ordinary nuisance; and, though a single infringement does not of itself produce any permanent injury, yet the example of successful infringement is contagious and pernicious; and, as it is extremely difficult to prove the extent of the infringement, and so the remedy at law is very inadequate, equity interferes by way of prevention as a matter of course. ”

“ Perhaps, however, it is not very material whether they be regarded as breaches of obligation or as equitable torts; for, whether they be the one or the other, it seems that the relief which equity will give will be the same. For equity never gives damages for an infringement of an equitable right, but makes the wrong-doer a debtor to the person wronged instead, and proceeds upon the theory of compelling the former to restore to the latter what he has lost, or to place him in the situation in which he would have been if the wrong had not been committed. ”

“ So, if an owner of property, thinking that he has the power to hypothecate it merely by declaring his will to that effect, declare, for a valuable consideration, that such property shall be a security to a creditor for the payment of his debt, though he will not create a legal hypothecation, nor incur any legal obligation, yet he will create an equitable hypothecation or an equitable lien; i. e., equity will give effect to the intention by creating an equitable obligation to hold the property as if it were legally bound for the payment of the debt. ”

“ If a legal right is capable of being the subject of an equitable obligation, the power of equity to impose an obligation upon the owner of it as such is subject to one limitation only, namely, that which is imposed by law. ”

“ Moreover, the remedy by way of prevention, if it does not come too late, is always the easiest, as well as the best, remedy that equity can give in case of a tort; and, therefore, it is never an answer to a bill for an injunction to prevent the commission of a tort, that the tort, if committed, can be specifically repaired by the defendant; and the only question of jurisdiction that such a bill can ever raise is this: Will more perfect justice be done by preventing the tort than by leaving the plaintiff to his remedy at law? ”

“ Thus, if A commit a tort against B, which is capable of indefinite repetition, and B bring an action and recover damages, and A persist notwithstanding in committing the tort, a court of equity will entertain a bill for an injunction; for otherwise B might have to bring an indefinite number of actions. If, indeed, there be a question of right involved between A and B, equity will not necessarily interfere after a single trial at law, but it will interfere as soon as it thinks the right has been sufficiently tried. ”

“ Nor does equity ever complain of their so acting, or seek to put any restraint upon their action, or question the validity and legality of their acts; and yet equity acts with the same freedom from restraint, even when dealing with legal rights, that courts of law do when dealing with rights of their own creation. ”

“ But suppose a person, to whom property is given on the terms of his incurring an equitable obligation in respect to it, is unwilling to incur such obligation, shall it be imposed upon him against his will? ”

“ But the converse of this does not hold; for equity will frequently prevent the breach of a negative contract, though it consist in not doing an act which is not such a tort as equity will prevent, or (which is generally the fact) is not a tort at all.
Nor is there much analogy between negative and affirmative contracts, in respect either to the extent of the jurisdiction exercised by equity over them, or the reasons for its exercise. It is doubtless true that the mere fact of a contract being negative is never in itself a reason why equity should not exercise jurisdiction over it ”