COMMON LAW 213
behalf. A legal right exists where one course of action is enforced, and the other prohibited by that organized society which is called the State. A legal right is, therefore, an interest which is recognized and protected by the State. Right is any interest, respect for which is a duty and the disregard for which is a wrong.
The Characteristics of a legal right
1. A legal right is a right which unlike moral right is enforced by the State.
2. A legal right is founded in a title which must be shown to have been acquired in any one of the modes of acquiring title recognized by law— e.g. possession, prescription, agreement and inheritance, etc.
3. A vestitive fact which creates a title to a right in one person destroys the title of another to the same right.
4. A legal right creates an obligation which is either an obligation in rem or an obligation in personam.
In what respects does an equitable right resemble, in what respects does it differ, from a legal right
1. Equitable right is not like a moral right which is not enforced by the State. Equitable right is like a legal right in that it is enforced by the State.
2. A title to an Equitable right need not be created by any one of the recognized modes by which a title to a legal right is created. This is the most important distinction.
Illustration :
(i) A legal mortgage of land must be created by a deed. But an equitable mortgage may be created otherwise than by deed :—
(a) The statute of trade required that no action shall be brought upon any contract or sale of lands or any interest therein unless agreement was in writing and signed by the party or his agent.