What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by 'fusion'? LSE Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101795/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Lobban, Michael (2019) What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by 'fusion'? In: Goldberg, John C.P., Smith, Henry E. and Turner, P.G., (eds.) Equity and Law: Fusion and Fission. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 70 - 95. ISBN 9781108421317 Reuse Items deposited in LSE Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the LSE Research Online record for the item.
[email protected] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/ What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by ‘fusion’? MICHAEL LOBBAN By the middle of 1851, the ‘fusion of law and equity’ had become ‘the slang of the day’.1 In part inspired by the recent reforms in New York piloted by David Dudley Field, the reformist Law Amendment Society resolved in May that all justice could be administered in one tribunal under one procedural code and that, in cases of conflict, rules of equity should prevail over rules of law.2 Nearly a quarter of a century later the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (U.K.) passed,3 which paved the way for the creation of a single High Court unifying the existing superior courts in one body, which would operate according to a single set of Rules and in which equity was to prevail.