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WHAT WERE LORD WESTBURY'S INTENTIONS IN PHILLIPS V PHILLIPS? BONA FIDE PURCHASE OF AN EQUITABLE INTEREST

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2021

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Abstract

In Phillips v Phillips, Lord Westbury stated that, against a bona fide purchaser faced with an “equity” to rescind, “the Court will not interfere”. This has been interpreted to mean that purchasers of even an equitable interest shall take free of prior equities. Yet the distinction between “equities” and equitable interests has been, and remains, uncertain; some have therefore questioned the intent behind Phillips. This paper shall elucidate Lord Westbury's intentions within their historical context and argues that Phillips offers a coherent, functional explanation of both: (1) the protection given to equity's darling; and (2) how that protection was effected.

Keywords

legal historyequityprioritybona fide purchase
Type
Articles
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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 156 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2021

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Footnotes

*

Lecturer in Private Law, University of Glasgow.

I am grateful to James Lee and Norma Dawson for reading, and commenting upon, earlier drafts of this article. In addition, I benefitted a great deal from conversations on this topic with John Mee, Pauline Ridge and Darryn Jenson. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved the final draft. All remaining errors are my own.

References

1 Re Stanford International Bank Ltd [2019] UKPC 45, [2020] 1 B.C.L.C. 446, at [70].

2 Akers v Samba Financial Group [2017] UKSC 6, [2017] A.C. 424, at [62] (Lord Neuberger).

3 Wortley v Birkhead (1754) 28 E.R. 364, 366 (Ch.); Yale, D.E.C. (ed.), Lord Nottingham's Chancery Cases, vol. II (London 1961), 160Google Scholar.

4 Fox, D., “Purchase for Value without Notice” in Davies, P., Douglas, S. and Goudkamp, J. (eds.), Defences in Equity (Oxford 2018), 54Google Scholar.

5 Bridge, S., Cooke, E. and Dixon, M., Megarry & Wade, The Law of Real Property, 9th ed. (London 2019)Google Scholar, [5–006].

6 Fox, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 54.

7 Shalson v Russo [2003] EWHC 1637 (Ch), [2005] Ch. 281, at [162]–[167]; Nair, A., Claims to Traceable Proceeds: Law, Equity and the Control of Assets (Oxford 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, [7.28].

8 Bridge et al., Megarry & Wade, [5-009]; J. McGhee and S. Elliott (eds.), Snell's Equity, 34th ed. (London 2019), [30–065]; L. Tucker, N. Le Poidevin and J. Brightwell, Lewin on Trusts, 20th ed. (London 2020), [44–121].

9 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.).

10 Ernest v Vivian (1864) 33 L.J. Ch. (N.S.) 513, 519.

11 Halifax Plc v Omar [2002] EWCA Civ 121, [2002] 2 P. & C.R. 26, at [68].

12 Ibid., at [68].

13 D. O'Sullivan, “The Rule in Phillips v Phillips” (2002) 118 L.Q.R. 296, 296–300.

14 Ibid., at 309.

15 Ibid., at 310.

16 Ibid., at 311–15.

17 Ibid., at 312–13.

18 Ibid., at 314–16.

19 Moreover, the last edition of his co-authored text on the law of rescission suggests that O'Sullivan still holds to the views set out in his L.Q.R. piece. A footnote cites the paper and comments, “[i]t is doubtful that later cases correctly understood Lord Westbury's true opinion on this point”: D. O'Sullivan, S. Elliott and R. Zakrzewski, The Law of Rescission, 2nd ed. (Oxford 2014), [21.69] n. 107.

20 Given this narrow focus, this paper shall not engage with the full range of argument O'Sullivan makes against the rule in Phillips in his L.Q.R. piece, particularly his observations upon the competing explanations for the rule as a “defence” of bona fide purchase as opposed to the defendant purchaser acquiring a “superior equity” to the claimant by pleading the defence: O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 319–22.

21 As is made clear in a footnote directing the reader to subsequent litigation in the Eyre v Burmester dispute and omitting the 1864 decision: ibid., at 311 n. 88.

22 Namely, “an equity as distinguished from an equitable estate”: Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.).

23 A. Nair and I. Samet, “What Can ‘Equity's Darling’ Tell Us about Equity?” in D. Klimchuk, I. Samet and H. Smith (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Equity (Oxford 2020), 284.

24 J. Ames, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, (1887) 1 H.L.R. 1, 3; B. McFarlane, The Structure of Property Law (Oxford 2008), 187–88, 243–44.

25 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 385 (Ch.).

26 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1166 (Ch.).

27 Rice v Rice (1853) 61 E.R. 646, 648 (Ch.).

28 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 382–83 (Ch.).

29 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1166 (Ch.).

30 Ibid., at 1164.

31 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 383–84 (Ch.).

32 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1165 (Ch.).

33 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 383–84 (Ch.).

34 Ibid., at 385–86.

35 Felton Harvey and Dorothy his Wife v Solomon Ashley and Others (1748) 26 E.R. 1150, 1152 (Ch.); Hill v Gomme (1839) 41 E.R. 366, 368 (Ch.).

36 “[I]t has never been doubted that marriage is a valuable consideration”: Clarke, Representative of Dickinson, Deceased v Wright (1861) 158 E.R. 350, 361 (Ex.); A. Simpson, A History of the Common Law of Contract: The Rise of the Action of Assumpsit (Oxford 1987), 364–73; Law of Property Act 1925, s. 205(1)(xxi).

37 Bassett v Nosworthy (1673) 23 E.R. 55, 56 (Ch.).

38 Sir John Stuart V.C. made the obvious point of the defendants that “they never could have had notice, because they were unborn persons at the time when the consideration passed”: Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 385 (Ch.).

39 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1165 (Ch.).

40 The defendants failed on both of these points at first instance, Sir John Stuart V.C. holding that neither the covenant nor the affidavit provided sufficient evidence of a lack of notice: Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 385 (Ch.).

41 Ibid., at 383.

42 Ibid., at 384.

43 Ibid., at 385.

44 J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings and the Incidents Thereof According to the Practice of the Courts of Equity, of England and America, 6th ed. (Boston 1857), 432–41; C.C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA 1883), 106–08.

45 Rowe v Teed (1808) 33 E.R. 794, 797 (Ch.); Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, 226.

46 J. Mitford, A Treatise on the Pleadings in Suits in the Court of Chancery, by English Bill, 5th ed. (London 1847), 15–16; C.C. Langdell, “Discovery under the Judicature Acts, 1873, 1875. Part II” (1897) 11 H.L.R. 205, 207–08, 211–12.

47 C.C. Langdell, “Discovery under the Judicature Acts, 1873, 1875. Part I” (1897) 11 H.L.R. 137, 138.

48 Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings, 582–83.

49 Mitford, Treatise on the Pleadings, 158, 229; Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, 215–19.

50 Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings, 412; G. Cooper, A Treatise of Pleading on the Equity-side of the High Court of Chancery (London 1809), 281.

51 Bassett v Nosworthy (1673) 23 E.R. 55, 56 (Ch.).

52 Lord Portarlington v Soulby (1833) 58 E.R. 628, 628; H. Seton, Forms of Decrees in Equity, and of Orders Connected with Them: With Practical Notes, 3rd ed., vol. 2 (London 1862), 1054.

53 Rowe v Teed (1808), 33 E.R. 794, 797 (Ch.); Ovey v Leighton (1825) 57 E.R. 335, 336 (Ch.).

54 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 385 (Ch.).

55 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1166 (Ch.).

56 Ibid., at 1166.

57 W. Ashburner, Principles of Equity, 1st ed. (London 1902), 67; Cave v Cave (1880) 15 Ch. D. 639, 646.

58 Cave v Cave (1880) 15 Ch. D. 639, 646.

59 As was observed of Phillips at the time: F. Haynes, Observations on the Defence of Purchase for Valuable Consideration without Notice (London 1880), 4–5

60 Attorney-General v Wilkins (1853) 51 E.R. 1043, 1146 (Ch.); Colyer v Finch (1856) 10 E.R. 1159, 1165 (H.L.); E. Sugden, A Concise and Practical Treatise of the Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Estates, 14th ed. (London 1862), 721.

61 “Till the case of Phillips v Phillips the validity of the defence against an equitable title appears not to have been questioned”: Sugden, Concise and Practical Treatise, 798, 796–98.

62 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 66 E.R. 382, 384 (Ch.); Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1165 (Ch.).

63 On the specific meaning of “purchaser” in the context of the defence, see Great Investments Ltd v Warner [2016] FCAFC 85, at [105]; Bridge et al., Megarry and Wade, [6–008].

64 Indeed, in the decade prior to Phillips, there had been a couple of decisions in which the defence had been successfully pleaded by the purchaser of a vested equitable interest against a prior vested equitable interest and even a prior registered judgment: Penny v Watts (1850) 64 E.R. 224, 233; Lane v Jackson (1855) 52 E.R. 710, 711.

65 Ernest v Vivian (1864) 33 L.J. Ch. (N.S.) 513, 519; Cave v Cave (1880) 15 Ch. D. 639, 646; Keate v Phillips (1881) 18 Ch. D. 560, 578–80; Re Ffrench's Estate (1887) 21 L.R. (Ir.) 283, 304–05, 319–22, 331–33 (C.A. Ir.); Cloutte v Storey [1911] 1 Ch. 18, 24 (C.A.). Though we will see in Section V that the distinction between “equities” and interests was only terminological; the ultimate distinction between bona fide purchase and the equitable priority rules reflected a conceptual difference of “function”.

66 Namely, that bona fide purchase was unavailable in the context of a priority dispute between several equitable interests: Yale, Lord Nottingham's Chancery Cases, 162, 475; D.E.C. Yale, Lord Nottingham's “Manual of Chancery Practice” and “Prolegomena of Chancery and Equity” (Cambridge 1965), 210.

67 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.).

68 D.E.C. Yale, “A Trichotomy of Equity” (1985) 6 J.L.H. 194, 194–97.

69 The taxonomy was not conceptually rigorous and there was no detailed consensus amongst writers as to which doctrines belonged under which head of jurisdiction: M. MacNair, “Equity and Conscience” (2007) 27 O.J.L.S. 659, 665–6.

70 Yale, “A Trichotomy”, 194.

71 Ind, Coope & Co v Emmerson (1887) 12 App. Cas. 300, 305 (H.L.); Ashburner, Principles of Equity, 10–11.

72 Though substantive relief was not infrequently sought in the same bill: Ind, Coope & Co v Emmerson (1887) 12 App. Cas. 300, 305 (H.L.).

73 Mitford, Treatise on the Pleadings, 64–67, 155–56, 226–29.

74 R. Willoughby, The Distinctions and Anomalies Arising Out of the Equitable Doctrine of the Legal Estate (Cambridge 1912), 24.

75 J. Ames, Lectures on Legal History and Miscellaneous Legal Essays (Cambridge, MA 1913), 266.

76 Wallwyn v Lee (1803) 32 E.R. 509 (Ch.).

77 Ames, Lectures on Legal History, 266.

78 Carver v Pinto Leite (1871–72) L.R. 7 Ch. App. 90 (C.A.); Sugden, Concise and Practical Treatise, 503.

79 Bassett v Nosworthy (1673) 23 E.R. 55, 55 (Ch.).

80 Ibid., at 56; Langdell, “Discovery under the Judicature Acts, 1873, 1875. Part II”, 211–12.

81 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.); Yale, Lord Nottingham's Chancery Cases, 69–87.

82 Marsh v Lee (1670) 86 E.R. 473, 474 (K.B.); Le Neve v Le Neve (1747) 26 E.R. 1172, 1175–77 (Ch.); Wortley v Birkhead (1754) 28 E.R. 364, 365–66 (Ch.); Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 579 (Ch.); Yale, Lord Nottingham's Chancery Cases, 69–87, 160–64.

83 Wortley v Birkhead (1754) 28 E.R. 364, 366 (Ch.).

84 Brace v Duchess of Marlborough (1728) 24 E.R. 829, 831 (Ch.); Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 582 (Ch.); E. Snell, The Principles of Equity: Intended for the Use of Students and the Profession, 1st ed. (London 1868), 108.

85 Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 578 (Ch.); Goleborn v Alcock (1829) 57 E.R. 894, 895 (Ch.).

86 Chinnery v Evans (1864) 11 E.R. 1274, 1283 (H.L.); Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 579 (Ch.).

87 By “tacking”, we mean the defendant's amalgamating his or her two securities to the prejudice of an intermediate, equitable incumbrancer. In order to “tack” securities in this way the defendant obviously needed to get the precedent legal mortgage: Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.); Rooper v Harrison (1855) 69 E.R. 704, 713–14 (Ch.).

88 Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 579 (Ch.).

89 Ibid., at 579; Chinnery v Evans (1864) 11 E.R. 1274, 1283 (H.L.) (Lord Westbury).

90 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1167 (Ch.).

91 Ibid., at 1167.

92 Earl of Ardglasse v Muschamp (1684) 23 E.R. 438, 439 (Ch.); Warrick v Warrick & Kniveton (1745) 26 E.R. 970, 972 (Ch.); Bell v Cundall (1750) 27 E.R.63, 63 (Ch.); Kennedy v Green (1834) 40 E.R. 266, 274 (Ch.); Addis v Campbell (1841) 49 E.R. 394, 397 (Ch.).

93 Malden v Menill (1737) 26 E.R. 402, 405 (Ch.); Sturge v Starr (1833) 39 E.R. 918, 919 (Ch.); Kennedy v Green (1834) 40 E.R. 266, 274 (Ch.); Robert Cole Bowen, a Minor, by his Mother and Next Friend v John Evans and Others (1848) 9 E.R. 1090, 1100 (H.L.); Bellamy v Sabine (1857) 44 E.R. 842, 847 (Ch.); Ogilvie v Jeaffreson (1860) 66 E.R. 147, 158 (Ch.). For this reason, it is something of a misnomer to speak of “the rule” in Phillips v Phillips as though it first arose in 1861; it is more accurate to say that Lord Westbury rationalised a pre-existing rule.

94 Lord Westbury had served as counsel in several cases concerning rescission in the years immediately prior to Phillips, and had successfully invoked the plea of bona fide purchase for the defendants in Bowen v Evans before the Lords in 1848: Bowen v Evans (1848) 9 E.R. 1090, 1098 (H.L.); Gresley v Mousley (1859) 45 E.R. 31, 33–34 (Ch.); Harper v Hayes (1860) 45 E.R. 731, 732–33 (Ch.).

95 There was an alternative line of authority in which the claim to rescind was characterised as an immediate equitable interest: Stump v Gaby (1852) 42 E.R. 1015, 1018 (Ch.); Gresley v Mousley (1856) 69 E.R. 789, 791 (Ch.).

96 Westminster Bank v Lee [1956] ch. 7, 18–19.

97 As observed by O'Sullivan: O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 309.

98 Ibid., at 308–09.

99 Lucidity was a particular virtue of Lord Westbury's judgments, which Holdsworth held up as “remarkable for their clear polished style, their clarity and their conciseness”: W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 1st ed., vol. XVI (London 1923), 87.

100 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1166 (Ch.).

101 Ernest v Vivian (1864) 33 L.J. Ch. (N.S.) 513, 519; Cory v Eyre (1863) 46 E.R. 58, 65 (Ch.); Cave v Cave (1880) 15 Ch. D. 639, 646 (Ch.); Ashburner, Principles of Equity, 75–77.

102 Ames, “Purchase for Value without Notice” (1887) 1 H.L.R. 1, 1.

103 O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 304, 310.

104 Ibid., at 297.

105 Ibid., at 309.

106 Ibid., at 309.

107 Ibid., at 309.

108 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 960 (H.L.).

109 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 989 (Ch.).

110 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 960 (H.L.); Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 989 (Ch.).

111 Ibid., at 960.

112 Ibid., at 964.

113 Ibid., at 961.

114 Ibid., at 961.

115 Ibid., at 962.

116 Ibid., at 964.

117 O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 309.

118 Ibid., at 310, (emphasis added).

119 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 989 (Ch.).

120 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 963 (H.L.).

121 O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 311.

122 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 962–63 (H.L.).

123 Ibid., at 964. Lord St. Leonards had previously reached the same conclusion on this point: Bowen v Evans (1844) 1 Jo. & Lat. 178, 265.

124 Ibid., at 964.

125 Ibid., at 990.

126 “[T]he only foundation of the bank's claim, is the mortgage by Sadleir prior to the deed of reconveyance”: ibid., at 964 (Lord Westbury).

127 Great Investments Ltd v Warner [2016] FCAFC 85, at [105].

128 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 990 (Ch.) (emphasis added); Gibbs v British Linen Co. (1875) 4 R. 630, 635 (C.S.O.H.) (Lord Shand).

129 “[A] Court of Equity requires that those who come to it to ask its active interposition to give them relief, should use due diligence”: Erlanger v The New Sombrero Phosphate Co. (1878) 3 App. Cas. 1218, 1278 (H.L.) (Lord Blackburn).

130 In the decade following Phillips, the traditional equitable terminology of “setting aside” an impugned transaction came to be recast in terms of the common-law distinction between “void” and “voidable” transactions: Richard Oakes v William Turquand and R P Harding (Peek v The Same, In re Overend, Gurney & Co.) (1867) L.R. 2 H.L. 325, 345–46 (Lord Chelmsford L.C.); Spackman v Evans (1868) L.R. 3 H.L. 171, 245 (Lord Romilly); Reese River Silver Mining Co. Ltd. v Smith (1869–70) L.R. 4 H.L. 64, 73 (Lord Hatherley L.C.).

131 Heath v Crealock (1874–75) L.R. 10 Ch. App. 22, 30–32 (C.A.).

132 Coulson v Allison (1860) 66 E.R. 117, 120 (Ch.).

133 Small v Attwood (1832) 159 E.R. 1051, 1101 (Ex.); J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, as Administered in England and America, 7th ed., vol. II (Boston 1857), 219.

134 J. Pomeroy, A Treatise on Equity Jurisprudence: As Administered in the United States of America, 1st ed., vol. 2 (San Francisco 1882), 628–29; Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, 633.

135 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 964–65 (H.L.) (emphasis added). To a modern readership, the language used by Lord Westbury is more suggestive of a “void” rather than “voidable” transaction. Nonetheless, the proper analysis of Eyre v Burmester is that Eyre gave a voidable release to Sadleir. A few years after Eyre v Burmester, Lord Chelmsford L.C. clarified that the traditional terminology of “setting aside” a transaction for fraud in equity equated to rescission of a “voidable” transaction: Oakes v Turquand (1867) L.R. 2 H.L. 325, 345–46.

136 “[A]ny additional security under the agreement of the 6th October 1855, not comprised in [Eyre's] original mortgage… must be given up or accounted for to the bank”: Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 965 (H.L.).

137 “[T]he equity is distinct from, because logically antecedent to, the equitable interest”: Latec Investments Ltd v Hotel Terrigal Pty. Ltd. [1965] 113 CLR 265, 276 (Kitto J.).

138 For an overview and application of Lord Westbury's reasoning in the 1864 instalment of the Eyre v Burmester litigation, see Gibbs v British Linen Co. (1875) 4 R. 630, 636 (C.S.O.H.).

139 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 989 (Ch.).

140 Ibid., at 990.

141 The mortgage deed stated the total loan to be £89,072: ibid., at 990.

142 Ibid., at 990.

143 Ibid., at 990.

144 Ibid., at 990–91 (emphasis added).

145 “[The claimant] can rescind the contract only subject to all the rights of innocent third parties”: In Re Overend, Gurney & Co, Ex Parte Oakes and Peek (1867) L.R. 3 Eq. 576, 607–08.

146 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 990–91 (Ch.).

147 For an overview of the concept of a “proprietary base”, see Nair, Claims to Traceable Proceeds, 173–81.

148 Eyre v Burmester (1864) 46 E.R. 987, 990–91 (Ch.).

149 Double Bay Newspapers Pty. Ltd. v AW Holdings Pty. Ltd. [1997] 42 NSWLR 409, 423–25.

150 Such as claims to traceable proceeds: Fox, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 74–75.

151 B. Häcker, “Proprietary Restitution after Impaired Consent Transfers: A Generalised Power Model” [2009] 68 C.L.J. 324, 329–31.

152 A. Everton, “‘Equitable Interests’ and ‘Equities’ – in Search of a Pattern” (1976) 40 Conv. 209, 219–20.

153 J.D. Heydon, M.J. Leeming and P.G. Turner, Equity: Doctrines and Remedies, 5th ed. (Chatswood, NSW 2015), [4–210].

154 Ruthol Pty. Ltd. v Mills [2003] NSWCA 56, at [112].

155 Heydon et al., Equity, [4–210].

156 Wallwyn v Lee (1803) 32 E.R. 509, 512 (Ch.).

157 O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 310.

158 Bainbridge & Anor v Bainbridge [2016] EWHC 898 (Ch), [2016] W.L.T.R. 943, at [24].

159 Heydon et al., Equity, [4–165].

160 Akers v Samba Financial Group [2017] UKSC 6, at [18] (Lord Mance).

161 Ames, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 3; McFarlane, Structure of Property Law, 187–88, 243–44.

162 Rice v Rice (1853) 61 E.R. 646, 648 (Ch.).

163 Wortley v Birkhead (1754) 28 E.R. 364, 366 (Ch.).

164 Bassett v Nosworthy (1673) 23 E.R. 55, 56 (Ch.); Mitford, Treatise on the Pleadings, 228.

165 Fox, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 65, 69–74; Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, 213.

166 Reilly, A, “Does ‘Equity's Darling’ Need a Legal Title? Reassessing Pilcher v Rawlins” (2016) 10 J. Eq. 89Google Scholar, 108.

167 Attorney-General v Wilkins (1853) 51 E.R. 1043, 1046 (Ch.); O'Sullivan, “Rule in Phillips v Phillips”, 300.

168 Bassett v Nosworthy (1673) 23 E.R. 55, 56 (Ch.); Brace v Duchess of Marlborough (1728) 24 E.R. 829, 831 (Ch.).

169 Nair and Samet, “What Can ‘Equity's Darling’ Tell Us about Equity?”, 281.

170 Newton v Newton (1868–69) L.R. 4 Ch. App. 143, 145.

171 Ind, Coope & Co v Emmerson (1887) 12 App. Cas. 300, 305 (H.L.) (Lord Selborne).

172 Heath v Crealock (1874–75) L.R. 10 Ch. App. 22, 33 (C.A.).

173 “This is the meaning of the rule, that where a man has both law and equity on his side, he shall not be hurt in a Court of equity”: Willoughby v Willoughby (1756) 28 E.R. 571, 579 (Ch.).

174 Wallwyn v Lee (1803) 32 E.R. 509, 512 (Ch.).

175 Fox, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 75.

176 For a brief overview of key developments, see Reilly, “Does ‘Equity's Darling’ Need a Legal Title?”, 108–09.

177 Great Investments Ltd v Warner [2016] FCAFC 85, at [106].

178 Attorney-General v Wilkins (1853) 51 E.R. 1043, 1046 (Ch.).

179 A distinction observed by Haynes, who served as counsel in Phillips: Haynes, Observations, 58–60, 63.

180 Phillips v Phillips (1861) 45 E.R. 1164, 1166–67 (Ch.).

181 Ibid., at 1168.

182 Ibid (emphasis added).

183 Rice v Rice (1853) 61 E.R. 646, 648 (Ch.).

184 O'Sullivan et al., Law of Rescission, [11.59]–[11.60], [11.82]–[11.92].

185 In Gresley v Mousley, decided just two years prior to Phillips in 1859, Lord Westbury appeared as counsel for the appellant, and argued that the “equity” to rescind was not a devisable interest; the rescinding-claimant “was not owner of this estate, but had at most a mere right to set aside the conveyance”, which right “could not have been assigned, therefore it could not be devised”: Gresley v Mousley (1859) 45 E.R. 31, 33 (Ch.).

186 Eyre v Burmester (1862) 11 E.R. 959, 964–65 (H.L.).

187 Megarry, R., “Mere Equities, the Bona Fide Purchaser and the Deserted Wife” (1955) 71 L.Q.R. 480Google Scholar, 480; Vasiliou v Westpac Banking Corp [2007] VSCA 113, at [113]–[119].

188 Bant, E., “Reconsidering the Role of Election in Rescission” (2012) 32 O.J.L.S. 467Google Scholar, 483; Häcker, “Proprietary Restitution”, 351.

189 Heath v Crealock (1874–75) L.R. 10 Ch. App. 22, 25 (C.A.).

190 Tennent v The City of Glasgow Bank and Liquidators (1879) 4 App. Cas. 615, 620–21 (H.L.).

191 Latec Investments Ltd v Hotel Terrigal Pty. Ltd. [1965] 113 C.L.R. 265, 277–79; O'Sullivan et al., Law of Rescission, ch. 20.

192 Seton, Forms of Decrees in Equity, 651.

193 Garrard v Frankel (1862) 54 E.R. 961, 967 (Ch.).

194 One method being to limit the claimant to a monetary payment the original transferee: Erlanger v The New Sombrero Phosphate Co. (1878) 3 App. Cas. 1218, 1278–79 (H.L.).

195 Pham v Gall [2020] NSWCA 116, at [7]–[9], [53]. Leeming, J.A. and Ibbetson, D., “What Is Legal History a History Of?” in Lewis, A. and Lobban, M. (eds.), Law and History (Oxford 2004), 34–36Google Scholar.

196 Ames, “Purchase for Value without Notice”, 3.