Courts of equity

“ It is necessary, therefore, to inquire whether, according to the principles of equity, as recognized in the courts of the United States, the state can obtain relief by a suit in equity.
The grounds of equity jurisdiction in such cases as the one before us are substantially those upon which courts of equity interfere in cases of waste, public nuisance, and purpresture. ”

“ Justice STORY said that an information in equity at the suit of the attorney general would lie in cases of purpresture and public nuisance; the jurisdiction of courts of equity being sustained because of 'their ability to give a more complete and perfect remedy than is attainable at law, in order to prevent irreparable mischief, and also to suppress oppressive and vexatious litigations.' Eq. ”

“ Courts of equity developed to afford relief where a money judgment in the common law courts provided no adequate remedy for an injured person. [10] From the beginning of equitable jurisdiction up to now, the chancery courts have generally granted or withheld their special remedies at their discretion; and 'courts of admiralty * * * act upon enlarged principles of equity.' O'Brien v. ”

“ That the practice of the state courts is not adapted, at present, to suits in equity, has not, it is believed, been shown, nor can it be. It must be useless to point out all, or indeed, any of the differences which exist between the two modes of procedure; the statement of a general principle will be sufficient to show it, and that is, that the remedies in equity result from the principles of equity, and that they must be sought, obtained and used in conformity to those principles. ”

“ That a court is called upon to enforce public rights and not the interests of private property does not diminish its power to protect such rights. 'Courts of equity may, and frequently do, go much farther both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved.' Virginian Ry. ”

“ Courts of equity can no more disregard statutory and constitutional requirements and provisions than can courts of law. They are bound by positive provisions of a statute equally with courts of law, and where the transaction or the contract is declared void because not in compliance with express statutory or constitutional provision, a court of equity cannot interpose to give validity to such transaction or contract, or any part thereof. ”

“ In some of those States, courts of law recognise and enforce in suits at law all equitable rights and claims which a court of equity would recognise and enforce; in others, all relief is denied, and such equitable claims and rights are to be considered as mere nullities at law. A construction, therefore, that would adopt the State practice in all its extent, would at once extinguish in such States the exercise of equitable jurisdiction. The acts of Congress have distinguished between remedies at common law and equity, yet this construction would confound them. ”

“ And, in this aspect, it makes no difference that the two cases, the suit in equity for an injunction and the action at law in which proceedings are stayed, are both pending in the same court, in view of the established distinction between 'proceedings at law and proceedings in equity in the national courts and between the powers of those courts when sitting as courts of law and when sitting as courts of equity.' Per Van Devanter, J., in Griesa v. Mutual Life Ins. ”

“ And though we have repeatedly decided in this court that the statute of a state cannot control the mode of procedure in equity cases in Federal courts, nor deprive them of their separate equity jurisdiction, we have also held that, where a statute of a state created a new right or provided a new remedy, the Federal courts will enforce that right, either on the common-law or equity side of its docket, as the nature of the new right or new remedy requires. ”

“ The precise reasons for this longstanding public policy against federal court interference with state court proceedings have never been specifically identified, but the primary sources of the policy are plain. One is the basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act, and particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable [p44] injury if denied equitable relief. ”

“ But the right to resort to a Federal court as a court of equity must be founded upon some ground of equitable jurisdiction recognized by the Federal courts, and when, as here, no such ground appears, jurisdiction in equity cannot be maintained. ”

“ Under the present statutes, the equity and admiralty procedure in the Federal courts is under the control of the Supreme Court, but in the pressure of business to which that court is subjected, it is impossible to hope that a radical and proper reform of the Federal equity procedure can be brought about. ”

“ The reliance on the analogy of equity power to enjoin proceedings in other courts has elements of fiction in this day of one form of action. The incongruity of taking jurisdiction from a stay in a law type and denying jurisdiction in an equity type proceeding springs from the persistence of outmoded procedural differentiations. ”

“ We held that, in this connection, the phrase 'fair and equitable' had become a term of art, that Congress used it in the sense in which it had been used by the courts in reorganization cases, and that whether a plan met the test of fairness and equity long established by judicial decision was not a question to be answered by the creditors and stockholders but by the court as a matter of law. ”

“ Of course, the usual considerations governing the exercise of equity jurisdiction are equally applicable to suits in the federal courts where jurisdiction depends upon the diversity of the parties' citizenship. The chancellor certainly must balance the equities before granting relief; he should stay his hand where another court seized of the controversy can do justice to the claims of the parties; he may refuse equitable relief where the asserted right is doubtful because of the substantive law which he must find as declared by the state. ”

“ If any characteristic of equity jurisprudence has descended unbrokenly from and within 'the traditional scope of equity as historically evolved in the English Court of Chancery,' it is that statutes of limitations, often in terms applying only to actions at law, have never been deemed to be rigidly applicable as absolute barriers to suits in equity as they are to actions at law. [4] That tradition, it would seem, should be regarded as having been incorporated in the various Acts of Congress which have conferred equity jurisdiction upon the federal courts. ”

“ In giving federal courts 'cognizance' of equity suits in cases of diversity jurisdiction, Congress never gave, nor did the federal courts ever claim, the power to dney substantive rights created by State law or to create substantive rights denied by State law. ”

“ That court has made separate regulations for common-law and equity practice. The rules in relation to the latter are not materially different from those adopted by this court for equity cases in the circuit courts. ”

“ Where the remedy at law is 'plain, adequate, and complete', it is the one which must be pursued even for the protection of any federal right. That practice of the federal equity courts was given further recognition and sanction by Congress in the Johnson Act, 48 Stat. ”

“ It is indisputable that the court was clearly right, as a matter of law, in holding that a court of equity in any event would not afford relief where there had been such laches as would cause it to be inequitable to do so. ”