... not be done then there was little chance of justice. To get around this technical difficulty, the judges did develop 'fictions' which allowed some cases to proceed. In other words they assumed certain facts for the case, even though those facts were not true. For example, in cases of trespass to land it was assumed that all trespasses were violent as this allowed the case to proceed. However, in many cases, even with these 'fictions', the law was too restricted to provide justice. The law was also very technical in that the wording of writs had to be exact; if there were an error in the formalities the person making the claim would lose the case. Another major problem was the fact that the only remedy the common law courts could give was 'damages' - that is an order for the defendant to pay a sum of money to the ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now