Equity: Filling Much-Needed Gaps?
Justices of the UK Supreme Court have given renewed prominence to the role of Equity to 'put right injustice to which the law is otherwise blind'. Professor Ben McFarlane will discuss the benefits and dangers of these views, with commentary provided by The Honourable Justice James Edelman of the High Court of Australia.
The question of the proper role of Equity in a contemporary legal system continues to exercise academics, and judicial views on the topic have significant practical effects.
In decisions such as Guest v Guest (proprietary estoppel); Byers v Saudi National Bank (knowing receipt liability); and Wolverhampton CC v London Gypsies and Travellers (injunctions), the reasoning of Justices of the UK Supreme Court has depended on judicial views as to the nature and purpose of Equity. Lord Briggs, in particular, has given renewed prominence to the role of Equity to “put right injustice to which the law is otherwise blind” and “to put right defects and inadequacies in the common law”.
This presentation will analyse such views, considering both the benefits of Equity and its dangers.
About the Speaker
Ben McFarlane is Professor of English Law and a Fellow of St John's College. He was an undergraduate and graduate law student at Oxford, and was a Fellow of Christ Church (1999-2003), St Peter's (2003-2004) and Trinity College (2004-2012) before joining UCL as a Professor of Law in 2012. He rejoined the Oxford Faculty of Law in 2019.
He teaches in private law subjects, including Land and Trusts on the FHS course and Advanced Property and Trusts on the BCL/ MJur. He is happy to supervise graduate research students working on topics in property and/or trusts and equity. His research focusses on the interaction of the law of property and the law of obligations, and he is particularly interested in the extent to which coherent principles can be extracted from the great mass of judicial decisions that make up the common law.
About Australian Centre for Private Law Events
The mission of the Australian Centre for Private Law is to foster the development and understanding of the private law through advanced theoretical, doctrinal, empirical and historical research, and the dissemination of that research through education and professional outreach. By supporting the work of its Fellows, the ACPL seeks to promote research in all areas of private law and to establish itself as a research centre of national and international importance. The core initiatives of ACPL are:
Research: To advance a deeper understanding of the structure, principles and policies of the private law through advanced theoretical, comparative, and empirical analysis.
Education: To promote, facilitate and disseminate the results of that research for the benefit of Australia’s social and economic fabric.
Professional Outreach: To engage the judiciary and members of the legal profession in discussion about the values, goals and methods of private law and the respective roles of the judiciary, the legal profession and the academy in the interpretation and reform of private law.
The ACPL embraces all branches of private law, including the law of contract, torts, trusts, equity, property, unjust enrichment, including theoretical and jurisprudential dimensions and contextual applications thereof.