Court of Chancery

“ Admit, then, that the act requires the witnesses to subscribe their names, can a court of chancery require or permit it now to be done? There is no time limited, in which it must be done. The act does not, like the statute of wills, require it to be done at the time. Whenever done the terms of the law are satisfied. What is it that is asked?-that the requisitions of the act should be set aside? that merely fictitious names should be inserted, to present to the eye only a compliance with the statute? ”

“ Lord Chancellor HARDWICKE, while exercising the power of the court of chancery, incidental to the disposition of a case pending before it, of restraining a plaintiff who had, by his bill, submitted his rights to its determination, from proceeding as to the same matter before another tribunal, either by indictment or by action, asserted in the strongest terms the want of any power or jurisdiction to entertain a bill for an injunction to stay criminal proceedings ”

“ Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. ”

“ By the time of Lord Eldon equity had become fixed, and the judges, like their brethren in the common law courts, strictly followed the precedents. Henceforward chancery and common law courts have exhibited the anomaly of two co-ordinate sets of tribunals, empowered to deal with the same matters, and compelled to proceed in many cases on wholly different principles. The court of chancery could in most cases prevent a person from taking advantage of a common law right, not approved of by its own system. ”

“ The case, being a chancery case, and being instituted as such, should have been tried as a chancery case by the modes of proceeding known to courts of equity. In those courts the judge or chancellor is responsible for the decree. If he refers any questions of fact to a jury, as he may do by a feigned issue, he is still to be satisfied in his own conscience that the finding is correct, and the decree must be made as the result of his own judgment, aided, it is true, by the finding of the jury. ”

“ Early in this year, (1615, Æt. 55,) a dispute which occasioned considerable agitation, arose between the Court of Chancery and the Court of King's Bench, respecting the jurisdiction of the chancellor after judgment given in courts of law. ”

“ Punch. November 9, 1878.
The Chancery Court.
There’s a place that bears a well-known name,
Tho’ ’tis but a seedy spot;
’Tis the first in the blazing scroll of shame,
And who dare say it is not?
Of the big-wigged ones who shine and live
On laws, on “Flats” and fees,
The choicest the Devil to earth can give
In this little spot one sees;
For a gem in its way, as we’ve always been taught,
Is that grand Institution—a Chancery Court.
There’s a thing that’s a terror to every tongue,
No matter when or where,
And to treat that thing as a mere old song
Is more than the richest dare. ”

“ The judges to whom it is directed are supposed by the writ to have done wrong. They may obey the writ by sealing the exceptions; or they may make a special return, which must be made to the king in chancery, and can be made no where else: and in issuing the writ the court of chancery acts as much judicially as the court of king's bench does in granting a mandamus. ”

“ A bill of exceptions is altogether unknown in chancery practice; nor is a court of chancery bound to inscribe in an order book, upon the application of one of the parties, an order which it may pass in a case before it; and the facts which the defendant stated in the supplemental answer and plea which he offered, furnished no ground of defence in the circuit court; when acting under the mandate of this Court, and carrying its directions into execution. ”

“ The Court of Chancery's broad special role contrasts sharply with this Court's own limited one. Because the Court of Chancery's decision constitutes an exercise of discretion, this Court reviews the record simply to determine whether that discretion has been abused. Polk v. Good, 507 A.2d at 536. "We do not exercise our own business judgment in an effort to evaluate independently the intrinsic fairness of the settlement." ”

“ The modern decisions in England, by eminent equity judges, concur in holding that a court of chancery has no power to restrain criminal proceedings, unless they are instituted by a party to a suit already pending before it, and to try the same right that is in issue there. ”

“ The objection is that, as the real party cannot be brought before the court, a suit cannot be sustained against the agents of that party; and cases have been cited to show that a court of chancery will not make a decree unless all those who are substantially interested be made parties to the suit. ”

“ There is certainly nothing in the history of the English Court of Chancery to induce this court to adopt rules in relation to rearguments, analogous to the chancery practice upon applications for a rehearing. ”

“ In the cases in which bills in equity, without an executor or administrator being made a party, have been maintained, while the probate or the administration was being contested in the ecclesiastical court, the court of chancery exercised a* jurisdiction, concurrent with that of the ecclesiastical courts in appointing special administrators, for the simple purpose of preserving the property until there was some person entitled to receive it. ”

“ In order therefore to prevent disagreeable contests with young gentlemen, it has become a practice for many guardians, of large estates especially, to indemnify themselves by applying to the court of chancery, acting under it's direction, and accounting annually before the officers of that court. For the lord chancellor is, by right derived from the crown, the general and supreme guardian of all infants, as well as idiots and lunatics; that is, of all such persons as have not discretion enough to manage their own concerns. ”

“ Whereas the characteristic award of the common law courts was seisin of land or monetary damages, Chancery often enjoined certain action. Because malicious suits were a problem, the Chancery identified such suits and issued injunctions against taking them to any court.
The Chancery was given jurisdiction by statute over men of great power taking by force women who had lands and tenements or goods and not setting them free unless they bound themselves to pay great sums to the offenders or to marry them. ”

“ The declaration of the Judge in the case cited from Harris & Johnson, that a Court of Chancery might injoin the obligees to allow the injured person to use their names in that particular case, is evidence of the opinion, that he could not sue at his own will. ”

“ It is not denied, as a general rule, that a fact which has been directly tried, and decided by a Court of competent jurisdiction, cannot be contested again between the same parties, in the same or any other Court. Hence a verdict and judgment of a Court of record, or a decree in Chancery, although not binding on strangers, puts an end to all further controversy concerning the points thus decided between the parties to such suit. ”

“ The lawyer says also that he does not think that the Court of Chancery would interfere, having no power to do so as far as the will is concerned, and not being able to make a ward of a person like myself who is over age and has the protection of the common law of the country. ”

“ On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. ”

“ The power of the legislature to grant chancery powers to existing courts, or to create chancery courts, is without limitation. Besides the equity powers granted by the constitution to the supreme court and courts of common pleas, to perpetuate testimony, &c., 'the legislature shall vest in the said courts such other powers to grant relief in equity, as shall be found necessary, and may, from time to time, enlarge or diminish those powers, or vest them in such other courts as they shall judge proper, for the due administration of justice.' Art. ”

“ It is the established doctrine of this court that in cases at law, where the judgment is joint, all the parties against whom it is rendered must join in the writ of error; and in chancery cases, all the parties against whom a joint decree is rendered must join in the appeal, or they will be dismissed. There are two reasons for this: 1. That the successful party may be at liberty to proceed in the enforcement of his judgment or decree against the parties who do not desire to have it reviewed. ”

“ The acts of the legislature discharged the trustees named in the devise, whatever may have been their estate in the land under it, but did not vest an estate in fee in Thomas B. Clarke.
We will now precede our inquiry into the jurisdiction given to the Chancellor by the acts, with a few remarks, which will aid in determining the extent of that jurisdiction, and what would have been its rightful exercise.
Jurisdiction in chancery is inherent and original, comprehending now almost every exigency of human disagreement, for which there is not an adequate remedy at law. ”

“ No one, for instance, would hesitate to say that, according to the English chancery practice, a bill to enjoin a judgment at law is an original bill in the chancery sense of the word. Yet this court has decided many times that when a bill is filed in the circuit court to enjoin a judgment of that court, it is not to be considered as an original bill, but as a continuation of the proceeding at law ”

“ And, as the ascertainment of the complainants' demand is by action at law, the fact that the chancery court has the power to summon a jury on occasion cannot be regarded as the equivalent of the right of trial by jury secured by the seventh amendment. ”

“ The power of the appellate court over the cause, of which it has acquired jurisdiction by the appeal from the interlocutory decree, is not affected by the authority of the court appealed from, recognized in the last clause of the section, and often exercised by other courts of chancery, to take further proceedings in the cause, unless in its discretion it orders them to be stayed pending the appeal. ”

“ It may, therefore, be considered as settled, that chancery has an original and necessary jurisdiction in respect to devises and bequests in trust to persons competent to take for charitable purposes, when the general object is specific and certain, and not contrary to any positive rule of law. ”

“ Practising before the five Chancery judges and the Chancery Court of Appeal, the leaders of the Equity Bar attach themselves to particular Courts, and invariably decline to leave their own favourite sphere of operations to appear in another Court without a special fee. The result of this arrangement is that litigants employing eminent counsel in Chancery cases can be almost certain of their attendance throughout. ”

“ The most usual mode under the chancery practice, unaffected by statute, is to compel the defendant, in person, to convey to plaintiff, or to have such conveyance made in his name, by a commissioner appointed by the court for that purpose. In some of the States it is provided by statute that a decree of the court shall operate as a conveyance where it is so expressed in the decree, and additional relief may be granted by giving possession of the land to plaintiff, quieting his title as against defendants, and enjoining them from asserting theirs. ”

“ Appellate power is exercised over the proceedings of inferior courts, not on those of the appellate court. The Supreme Court have no power to review their decisions, whether in a case at law or in equity. A final decree in chancery is as conclusive as a judgment at law. ”