england-and-wales equity
Why did the strict rules of evidence result in a debt being due twice, even though common law dismissed this as absurd?
<p>As &quot;<em>the common
law held that a debt was due twice . . . [that proposition] would have been dismissed as
absurd</em>&quot;, why wasn't this the end of the story for the debtor? Why was this &quot;<em>the result which followed from observing strict rules of evidence</em>&quot;?</p>
<p>I am befuddled by the modal verb &quot;<strong>might</strong>&quot; in quotation beneath. Did the rules of evidence truly  &quot;<em>exclude the merits of the case from consideration but which could not be relaxed without destroying certainty and condoning carelessness</em>&quot;?</p>
<p>Most lawyers and judges are crafty. I am startled that even they could not skirt, outjockey, and/or relax the rules of evidence in order to actualize  a common law proposition dismissed as absurd (&quot;a debt was due twice&quot;)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>1.5 The first is that equity, fairness, or justice were never absent from the common law
courts. The difference was that from the mid-fourteenth century the complaints that the
common law courts would hear became fixed. That is, the common law courts refused to
invent new categories of writs, or different ‘forms of action’; the procedures of the court
as to pleading and evidence also became fixed. Baker (2002), at 102–103 (slightly modified)
illustrates the sort of problem that could arise because of this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]he growing strength of the substantive law could also work injustice, because the
judges preferred to suffer hardship in individual cases than to make exceptions to clear
rules. The stock example was that of the debtor who gave his creditor a sealed bond
[a paper document recording the obligation to pay the debt], but did not ensure that it
was cancelled when he paid up. The law regarded the bond as incontrovertible evidence
of the debt, and so payment was no defence. Here the debtor would suffer an obvious
hardship if he was made to pay twice; but the mischief was a result of his own foolishness,
and the law did not bend to protect fools . . . <strong>Now it was not that the common
law held that a debt was due twice . . . [that proposition] would have been dismissed as
absurd. Yet that was the result which followed from observing strict rules of evidence,
rules which might exclude the merits of the case from consideration but which could not
be relaxed without destroying certainty and condoning carelessness. [emphasis added]</strong></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>On page 4 of <em>The Law of Trusts</em> 12th edn (2022), James Penner quoted  Baker, J. H. (2002). <em>An Introduction to English
Legal History</em>, 4th Ed.</p>

<p>The &quot;rule which might exclude the merits of the case from consideration&quot; referred to in this passage is the rule that &quot;a sealed bond [was] incontrovertible evidence of the debt, and so payment was no defence.&quot;</p>
<p>Strict application of a rule about &quot;incontrovertible evidence&quot; can result in absurdity when the proposition which is legally &quot;incontrovertible&quot; – in this case, that the debt evidenced by the sealed bond continued to exist – is actually false. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion" rel="nofollow noreferrer">From falsehood, anything follows.</a></p>
