Maxims of Equity - Equity Will Not Suffer A Wrong To Be Without A Remedy

Equity Will Not Suffer A Wrong To Be Without A Remedy

When seeking an equitable relief, the one that has been wronged has the stronger hand. The stronger hand is the one that has the capacity to ask for a legal remedy (judicial relief). In equity, this form of remedy is usually one of specific performance or an injunction (injunctive relief). These are superior remedies to those administered at common law such as damages. The Latin legal maxim is ubi jus ibi remedium ("where there is a right, there must be a remedy"), sometimes cited as ubi jus ibi remediam.

The maxim is necessarily subordinate to positive principles and cannot be applied either to subvert established rules of law or to give the courts a jurisdiction hitherto unknown, and it is only in a general not in a literal sense that the maxim has force.

Case law dealing with principle of this maxim at law include Ashby v White (1703) 92 ER 126 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). The application of this principle at law was key in the decision of Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) wherein it was necessary to establish that Marbury had a right to his commission in the first place in order for Chief Justice Marshall to make his more wide-ranging decision.