Dickens used it to attack the chancery court system as being almost completely worthless, as any "honourable man among its practitioners" says, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"Īll of the main characters are connected in some way through the case, though the legal proceedings appear only as a background plot. The case has dragged on for many generations before the action of the novel, so that, by the end of the narrative when the correct heirs appear to have finally been established, legal costs have devoured the whole estate, rendering any ultimate verdict moot. Jarndyce v Jarndyce concerns the fate of a large inheritance due to the apparent existence of multiple wills and trusts deriving therefrom (with those containing multiple beneficiaries), the heir or heirs cannot be determined. The v in the case title is an abbreviation of the Latin versus, but is normally pronounced "and" for civil cases in England and Wales. The case is a central plot device in the novel and has become a byword for seemingly interminable legal proceedings.ĭickens refers to the case as "Jarndyce and Jarndyce", the way it would be spoken of. Jarndyce and Jarndyce (or Jarndyce v Jarndyce) is a fictional probate case in Bleak House (1852–53) by Charles Dickens, progressing in the English Court of Chancery. Fictional court case created by Charles Dickens
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