Section 14 Equity Regards That as Done Which Ought to Be Done

• Library: Remedies 2006

When a party does all it is required to do under an agreement, equity will regard that agreement as one that ought to be performed, and courts will order the parties to complete performance of that agreement. Thus, when the owner of a life insurance policy takes all steps necessary to name a new beneficiary, but the legal beneficiary of the life insurance policy is still listed as someone else, a Missouri court will order the policy proceeds paid to the new beneficiary. Equitable Life Assur. Soc. of the United States v. Baumgardner, 55 F. Supp. 985 (W.D. Mo. 1944). And when a party perpetuates a fraud on an unsophisticated lender by using an incorrect legal description on a deed of trust that testimony establishes was meant to describe another piece of property, a court of equity will reform that deed of trust to describe the intended piece of property and even give the lender a lien on the fire insurance that the borrower purchased on the correct piece of property. McBee v. Twin City Fire Ins. Co., 238 S.W.2d 685 (Mo. App. S.D. 1951).

Application of this maxim has led to the following...