Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/115

95 MANDATORY INJUNCTIONS. 9$ MANDATORY INJUNCTIONS.* IN the whole range of English and American remedial jurispru- dence there is no subject which illustrates and demonstrates more strikingly than the equitable remedy of injunction the evolu- tionary principles which are incessantly at work in the development of the law. Equity itself, now a splendid and orderly system of remedies, was born of necessity, and underwent a constant, and sometimes an unequal, struggle for existence and supremacy during the past two hundred and fifty years. The legal remedies were un- yielding in their forms, and because of their unyielding forms were inapplicable in an ever-enlarging class of cases where rights were to be preserved, duties and obligations enforced, and wrongs and injustice prevented. Where the legal remedies were inadequate, in- complete, or wholly wanting, there equity gradually began to exert itself in the application of new remedies, so that wrong and injus- tice might not prevail over right and justice for the lack of an efficient remedy. It is to be regarded as one of the glories of our English and American law that this evolution and development, this reaching out after more ample and complete remedies, this working together of vital forces towards a more and more perfect and harmonious system of remedial justice, is still going on ; and that no one having a just cause need fear that he must suffer or endure a wrong for the want of a sufficient remedy. " It is the duty of a court of equity," said Lord Cottenham, in Taylor v. Salmon^ (and the same is true of all courts and institu- tions), " to adapt its practice and course of proceedings, as far as possible, to the existing state of society, and to apply its jurisdic- tion to all those new cases which, from the progress daily made in the affairs of men, must continually arise, and not, from too strict an adherence to forms and rules established under very different circumstances, decline to administer justice and to enforce rights for which there is no other remedy." 1 This paper was read by Judge Klein at the meeting of the Missouri Bar Associa- tion in Kansas City, Mo., March 30, 1898. — Ed. « (1838) 4 Mylne & Cr. 134. »3