One Who Comes Into Equity Must Come With Clean Hands
It is often stated that one who comes into equity must come with clean hands (or alternatively, equity will not permit a party to profit by his own wrong). In other words, if you ask for help about the actions of someone else but have acted wrongly, then you do not have clean hands and you may not receive the help you seek. For example, if you desire your tenant to vacate, you must have not violated the tenant's rights.
However, the requirement of clean hands does not mean that a "bad person" cannot obtain the aid of equity. "Equity does not demand that its suitors shall have led blameless lives." Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U.S. 216, 229 (1934), (Brandeis, J.). The defense of unclean hands only applies if there is a nexus between the applicant's wrongful act and the rights he wishes to enforce.
For instance, in Riggs v. Palmer (1889) 115 N.Y. 506, a man who had killed his grandfather to receive his inheritance more quickly (and for fear that his grandfather may change his will) lost all right to the inheritance.
In D & C Builders Ltd v Rees EWCA Civ 3, a small building firm did some work on the house of a couple named Rees. The bill came to £732, of which the Rees had already paid £250. When the builders asked for the balance of £482, the Rees announced that the work was defective, and they were only prepared to pay £300. As the builders were in serious financial difficulties (as the Rees knew), they reluctantly accepted the £300 "in completion of the account". The decision to accept the money would not normally be binding in contract law, and afterwards the builders sued the Rees for the outstanding amount. The Rees claimed that the court should apply the doctrine of equitable estoppel, which can make promises binding when they would normally not be. However, Lord Denning refused to apply the doctrine, on the grounds that the Rees had taken unfair advantage of the builders' financial difficulties, and therefore had not come "with clean hands".
- Further reading: The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon On Clean Hands Doctrine
Read more about this topic: Maxims Of Equity
Famous quotes containing the words equity, clean and/or hands:
“If equity and human natural reason were allowed there would be no law, there would be no lawyers.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“There is a rhythm to the ending of a marriage just like the rhythm of a courtship—only backward. You try to start again but get into blaming over and over. Finally you are both worn out, exhausted, hopeless. Then lawyers are called in to pick clean the corpses. The death has occurred much earlier.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“It is a strange, strange fate, and now, as I stand face to face with death I feel just as if they were going to kill a boy. For I feel like a boy—and my hands so free from blood and my heart always so compassionate and pitiful that I cannot comprehend how anyone wants to hang me.”
—Roger Casement (1864–1916)