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E Q U I T Y L AW 2 5 8 7

Lecture One - Part One

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

Mr Carlo Dellora
• Offering Course Coordinator, Lecturer and
Tutor
• Dr Belinda Clarence is course coordinator
• Lecturer and tutor
• Completing PhD on ethics at Monash
• Previous teaching: Criminal Law, Evidence,
Administrative Law and Constitutional law
• Prior employment: Victoria Legal Aid, the
Supreme Court

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

Contact Details

• Email: carlo.dellora@rmit.edu.au
• Office: Building 13, Room 02
• Phone: 9925 4299
• Office hours by appointments
• Course enquiries by email/appointment

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ASSESSMENT

• Four multiple choice quizzes worth 20% - covering

the first four weeks – due dates in the subject guide
• One written task worth 30% with a choice of
either a hypothetical or a written essay – due 1 May
2024
• An exam worth 50% written by Belinda and I –
date TBC

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E X P E C TAT I O N S

• Lecture materials (slides and recordings) available on

Canvas by 12-noon Monday the week prior
• Emails will be replied to within two working days –
lecturers
• No requirement to check or respond to emails outside
of business hours, on weekends, or public holidays
• Assignment grades will be returned with feedback
within ten working days from submission
• All information on lectures, tutorial questions and
readings can be found in the relevant Module on
Canvas
• This course uses lectures, tutorials, and readings. It is
expected that you will complete these.
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IRAC METHOD

IRAC stands for:

Issue
Rule
Application
Conclusion
In Equity we use this method to work through the
weekly tutorial problems. This structure ensures that you
stay on track when developing a clear answer for your
client. If a client has multiple issues you use multiple
IRACs to work through the most likely outcomes for
them.

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S U B J E C T I N F O R M AT I O N

Equity LAW2410
• Meetings by appointment for complex
questions, email for simple ones
• Email: carlo.dellora@rmit.edu.au
• Will have three assessments: multiple choice
quiz, hypothetical/essay and exam
• Will have three core parts: trusts and
fiduciary duties, equitable causes of actions
and remedies

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S U B J E C T OV E RV I E W
• Week one - Introduction to equity
• Weeks two to five – Trusts and fiduciary duties
• Weeks six to eight – Equitable causes of action
• Weeks nine to eleven – Equitable remedies

• Week twelve – Bars to relief and revision

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W E E K O N E OV E RV I E W

• Meaning of equity
• Philosophy of equity
• History of equity
• The fusion fallacy
• Equity’s maxims
• Miller v Jackson [1977] 1 QB 966

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L E C T U R E O N E - PA RT
T WO
• Introduction to equity
• Meaning of equity
• Philosophy of equity

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MEANING(S) OF
EQUITY
• Principles, doctrines and remedies arising under equity
e.g. unconscionable conduct
• Relating to those courts exercising the jurisdiction of
the English Court of Chancery
• Now same courts due to the Judicature Acts of 1873
and 1875 (UK)
• Equitable interests – a right or claim such as in a trust
• Other non-legal meaning – fair, impartial, affirmative
action etc.

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I N T RO D U C T I O N T O E Q U I T Y

• Originally a separate system of law

• No longer a separate jurisdiction
• Retained certain important features,
notably: flexibility, fairness and operating
according to standards of good conscience
• Discretionary and tailored
• Ameliorative of the harshness of the
common law

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PHILOSOPHY OF EQUITY

• Common law – universal

• Equity – tailored and ameliorative
• Discretionary and flexible
• Aristotle – presaged the doctrines of equity early
on in his Nichomachean Ethics
• Normative ethics Julian Savulescu

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L E C T U R E O N E - PA RT
THREE

• History
• Fusion fallacy
• Remedies and maxims

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H I S T O RY O F E Q U I T Y
• ‘Nobody has been able to come up with a satisfactory definition of ‘equity’, save to say
that it is that body of rules and principles which, before 1875, were the peculiar province
of certain special courts, notably the Court of Chancery.’
Prescott J in Griggs Group Ltd v Evans (No 2) [2003] EWHC 291 [39]

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H I S T O RY O F E Q U I T Y

• Court of Chancery
• Systematized in the 14th century
• Earl of Oxford’s Case (1615) 1 Ch Rep 1
• By end of 18th century equity has come to
resemble the excesses of the common law
• Finally fused and modernized

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F U S I O N FA L L AC Y

• Separate system initially but combined in the late 19th century

• Note that this did not integrate the separate principles of
common law and equity – this is described as the fusion fallacy
• For example, that specific performance is available as a
common law remedy
• This is distinct from a normative argument saying that the
principles should be fused – which historically was not done
but could certainly be done by statute

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REMEDIES

• Remedially focused – attention to be given

to the fact that the flexible remedies of
equity gives it a much greater scope to be
tailored to facts and justice
• See above on philosophy and history
• Personal and proprietary
• Exclusive and auxiliary

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L E C T U R E O N E - PA RT
FOUR

• Maxims
• Miller v Jackson [1977] 1 QB 966

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MAXIMS

• Apart from a vigorous life in law examinations at the pen of weaker candidates, most maxims do not
today greatly figure in judicial language, and their principal harm is, by their banality, to reduce
manifestations of justice to the level of simple chatter, and thereby to devalue the underlying
conscience’
Jeffrey Hackney Understanding Equity and Trusts (1987) p. 29

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M I L L E R V JAC K S O N [ 1 9 7 7 ] 1 Q B 9 6 6

• Cricket case regarding tort of nuisance

• Facts: Houses built on edge of ground. Built
nearby existing cricket grounds. Balls were hit
into the house and damaged it. Plaintiff thought
they might get hurt.
• Sought injunction in negligence and nuisance
(so auxiliary jurisdiction of equity to grant
injunction)
• Held by Lord Denning, (Cumming-Bruce LJ
agreeing, Geoffrey Lane LJ in dissent) that in the
balance of the rights of plaintiff to quiet
enjoyment of house and cricket club to play
cricket – cricket wins

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