Harton v. Little

• Decision Date: 21 May 1914
• Docket Number: 466
• Citation: 188 Ala. 640,65 So. 951
• Parties: HARTON v. LITTLE et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

65 So. 951

188 Ala. 640

HARTON v. LITTLE et al.

No. 466

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 21, 1914

Rehearing Denied June 18, 1914

Appeal from Chancery Court, Jefferson County; A.H. Benners Chancellor.

Bill by H.M. Harton against W.M. Little and others to rescind and cancel a deed to certain bonds, and to have a deed executed to complainant. Decree for defendants, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

See also, Harton v. Little, 176 Ala. 267, 57 So. 851; Harton v. Enslen, 176 Ala. 77, 57 So. 723; and Empire Realty Co. v. Harton, 176 Ala. 99, 57 So 763.

S.C. Amason, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Forney Johnston and Frank S. White & Sons, all of Birmingham, for appellees.

GARDNER J.

The demurrers to the bill as amended, which were sustained in the court below, seek to invoke (among others) the application of the principles embraced in the maxim, "He who comes into equity must come with clean hands."

In discussing the maxim, we can do no better than take a few excerpts from Mr. Pomeroy's excellent work (1 Eq.Jur. § 397 et seq.) wherein he says:

"This maxim is sometimes expressed in the form, He that hath committed iniquity shall not have equity. Like the one described in the preceding section, it is not, in its ordinary operation and effect, the foundation and source of any equitable estate or interest, nor of any distinctive doctrine of the equity jurisprudence; it is rather a universal rule guiding and regulating the action of equity courts in their interposition on behalf of suitors for any and every purpose, and in their administration of any and every species of relief. Resembling the former maxim in this respect, it differs from that principle in some most important and essential features. In applying the maxim, 'He who seeks equity must do equity,' as a general rule regulating the action of courts, it is necessarily assumed that different equitable rights have arisen from the same subject-matter or transaction, some in favor of the plaintiff, and some of the defendant. *** The maxim does not assume that the plaintiff has done anything unconscientious or inequitable. *** On the other hand, the maxim, now under consideration. 'He who comes into equity must come with clean hands,' is much more efficient and restrictive in its operation. It assumes that the suitor asking the aid of a court of equity has himself been guilty of conduct in violation of the fundamental conceptions of equity jurisprudence, and therefore refuses him all recognition and relief with reference to the subject-matter or transaction in question. It says that whenever a party who, as actor, seeks to set the judicial machinery in motion and obtain some relief, has violated conscience or good faith, or other equitable principle, in his prior conduct, then the doors of the court will be shut against him in limine; the court will refuse to interfere on his behalf, to acknowledge his right, or to award him any remedy. The principle involved in this maxim in merely the expression of one of the elementary and fundamental conception of equity jurisprudence. *** Whatever may be the strictly accurate theory concerning the nature of equitable interference, the principle was established from the earliest days that, while the court of chancery could interpose and compel a defendant to comply with the dictates of conscience and good faith with regard to matters outside of the strict rules of the law, or even in contradiction to those rules, while it could act upon the conscience of a defendant and force him to do right and justice, it would never thus interfere on behalf of a plaintiff whose own conduct in connection with the same matter or transaction had been unconscientious or unjust, or marked by a want of good faith, or had violated any of the principles of equity and righteous dealing which it is the purpose of the jurisdiction to sustain. While a court of equity endeavors to promote and enforce justice, good faith, uprightness, fairness, and conscientiousness on the part of the parties, who occupy a defensive position in judicial controversies, it no less stringently demands the same from the litigant parties who come before it as plaintiffs or actors in such controversies."

The author then in the following section, by way of illustration, points out the effect of the above maxim upon cases involving specific performance, and shows that, although a contract may be perfectly valid and binding at law, and may be of a class which brings it within the equitable jurisdiction, because the legal remedy is inadequate, yet if the plaintiff's conduct in obtaining it, or in acting under it, has been unconscientious, inequitable, or characterized by bad faith, a court of equity will refuse him the remedy.

"By virtue of this principle, a specific performance will always be refused when the plaintiff has obtained the agreement by sharp and unscrupulous practices, by overreaching, by concealment of important facts, even though not actually fraudulent, by trickery, by taking undue advantage of his position, or by any other means which are unconscientious. *** This application of the principle, better perhaps than any other, illustrates its full meaning and effect for it is assumed that the contract is not illegal, that no defense could be set up against it at law, and even that it possesses no features or incidents which could authorize a court of equity to set it aside and cancel it. Specific performance is refused simply because the plaintiff does not come into court with clean hands."

As is shown in the recent case of Baird v. Howison, 154 Ala. 366, 45 So. 670, this maxim includes within its operation several others, frequently acted upon in courts of equity, among them being the following: No action arises out of fraud or deceit; a right cannot arise to any one out of his own wrong. When both parties are equally in the wrong the defendant holds the stronger ground; and, as there quoted:

"The fundamental reason upon which each of these maxims seems to rest is that a party does not come into court with clean hands to whose cause either of these maxims may be justly applied."

In Glover, Adm'r, v. Walker, 107 Ala. 540, 18 So. 251, quoting the case of Williams v. Higgins, 69 Ala. 523, we find the following:

"Truth and fair dealing are rules of universal obligation. If men, in consummation of frauds, employ instruments, binding and conclusive in their legal operation and effect, it is sound reason, good policy, sheer justice, to leave them where they have placed themselves, bound as they have bound themselves, without assistance from the courts to unloose them, when it becomes their interest to be unloosed, encouraging them and others to commit similar fraud."

It is also made clear by the authorities that the principle is not invoked out of any regard or concern for the adverse party, but more in reproof to the plaintiff, and by way of punishment for the wrong and condemnation thereof by the court. This is better expressed in quotation found in Baird v. Howison, supra, as follows:

"The principle or policy of the law, therefore, is to reject the suit of and reprove the plaintiff for his wrong--not to reward the defendant. The plaintiff must be punished, even though it may be at the expense of allowing the defendant, an equally guilty party, to obtain most unjust and unfair advantage for himself."

And in Glover v. Walker, supra, it is said:

"It is held that, where the purpose of a grantor in the execution of a conveyance, absolute in form, is to place his property beyond the reach of creditors, to be held in trust for his own benefit, neither he nor his heirs can enforce the trust; not that such a conveyance gives the grantee an honest right to hold, but, because of the vicious intent (italics ours) of the grantor, he forfeits all

...