Post by Henry Smith
To those interested in equity (who isn’t?) and private law defenses, let me offer “Equitable Defences as Meta-Law,” which will be published by Hart this May in Defences in Equity, edited by Paul S. Davies, Simon Douglas, and James Goudkamp. It can be found at SSRN here. The chapter shows how a range of equitable defenses serve a second-order function of equity – intervening into first-order law to solve complex problems involving opportunism, multipolar problems and conflicting rights. It also provides criteria for fusing equitable legal defenses and an explanation for why some equitable defenses have been more generalizable than others.