merged into and made part of

I remember when I was a young adult, and my generation were marrying, it was popular to include the 'candle ceremony' in wedding festivities.  This involved the two individuals each bearing a lighted candle to a larger, centrally placed candle, and simultaneously lighting that one, and then extinguishing the flame of their individual candle.  While I could wax on about the fallacies of that symbolism and marriage, I'll leave that for another day.

What brings it to mind is the merger of law and equity, a marriage of sorts.

Legal remedies of our legal system first developed in English courts of law/common law, and were limited to specific writs/forms of action.  If there was not an existing writ, then there was no legal remedy.  Things like trover, replevin, and assumpsit dance like sugarplums in my head.   While some would say that a right is a right regardless of one's ability to vindicate it, others ask what is a right without the means to enforce it?  There was a gap between justice as understood and justice obtained.

Over time courts of equity developed that addressed this gap by introducing equitable remedies for situations where a legal remedy was not available.  These equitable remedies may be prohibitory, coercive or declaratory in nature.  Generally they affect the conduct of the defendant in some way.  From this history comes the notion that equitable remedies are appropriate only where legal remedies are inadequate.

In the U.S., the courts of law and equity have been merged, so that a judge has jurisdiction to issue a preliminary injunction, and follow that with a judgment for money damages after full trial on the merits.  There are still distinctions, however.  There are rules, both statutory and judicially created, that drive the procedure and the remedy available in a given case.  Whether a defendant has the right to a jury trial in a civil matter is determined by whether the action or the remedy is equitable or legal in nature.  Apparently while married, law and equity have maintained their own lights, in spite of the conflagration in the middle.