Balancing actions in law refer to judgments that go beyond the law when it is found to be inadequate. It often arises in real estate disputes and environmental law, where obeying the letter of the law would be unjust. Judges are expected to weigh legal, humanities, environmental, and ethical considerations to build a stronger legal system.
The idea of balancing actions has existed in the legal sphere since the days of classical Greece, when Plato wrote of the difficulty of balancing the law as established and a sense of fairness. The phrase refers to a type of judgment that can go beyond the law when the law is found to be inadequate. This idea often comes up in real estate disputes and environmental law, where obeying the letter of the law would be doing the situation an injustice. Despite the large number of laws on the books, the legal system isn’t always perfect, and balancing actions in legal cases is an attempt to rectify the situation.
For most people, the term conjures up an image of a higher natural law, where conscience and humanity are considered in a judicial sentence as well as the letter of the law in the matter. Historically, England had separate law and equity courts designed to recognize this distinction and to attempt to compensate for inadequacies in the legal system. This system was also used in the United States until it was determined that the common law courts should make decisions that are fair as well as legal.
Stock balancing often arises in real estate cases because there are numerous factors outside the law to consider. For example, a community might sue a developer for pulling out of a project. The letter of the law might determine that the lawsuit is invalid, but a judge might decide that the community needs just reparations to compensate for the preparations made for a development that never occurred. In this case, the judge weighed the letter of the law while also looking at ethical considerations, and ruled that the developer was wrong in some ethical sense, if not legally.
In American law, there is a specific set of procedures to consider when balancing actions, and judges are expected to weigh legal, humanities, environmental and ethical considerations. Many citizens have often felt that the law fell short of justice and that a legal judgment did not satisfy them, and this is what these procedures are designed to address. Balancing actions allows judges to incorporate humanism into their legal practice and builds a stronger legal system that takes into account issues normally outside legal jurisprudence.
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