220 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Equitable Priorities
An equitable right is a right in personam— operating against the owner of a legal right out of which it flows.
There may be two equitable rights flowing out of one legal right. Both would be rights in personam against the owner of the legal right out of which they flow.
An equitable right being a right in personam arising out of the legal and not out of the property which is the object of the legal right, could be defeated by transferring the legal right to a new owner. Or another equitable right may arise by this transfer which may defeat the prior equitable right.
The question to be considered is, in what cases can such a transfer defeat an equitable right ?
The subject is discussed generally under the heading of Equitable Priorities. It is so designated because the test applied for the determination of the issue is the priority in time. But the real subject matter is the possible cases where an equitable right can be defeated by transfer of a legal right out of which it arises or by the creation of another equitable right out of the same legal right ?
Cases to be considered fall under two classes :
(i) Cases where there is a conflict between Legal Right and an Equitable Right
(ii) Cases where there is a conflict between two equitable rights.
- Under the first class of cases there are two contingencies which must be distinguished :
(a) Where the Equitable Right is prior in existence to the legal right.
(b) Where an equitable right arises subsequently to the legal right.
Mrs. Thorndike was the beneficiary of a certain Trust Fund of which C was a trustee. In a suit by Mrs. Thorndike, the Court directed the Trustee to transfer of the fund into the Court for the purposes of the Thorndyke Trust and was held by the Administrator. It appeared that the Trustees against whom the order was made had provided themselves improperly with the means of discharging themselves from their personal liability to bring the fund into Court and that there are third persons whom