Equity—Clean Hands Doctrine—Not Automatically Invoked Against Fraudulent Transferor
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The Doctrine of Clean Hands
LITIGATION - CANADA AUTHORS "Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up": the Norm Emblem doctrine of clean hands December 06 2016 | Contributed by Dentons Introduction Origins Bethany McKoy Recent cases Comment Introduction On occasion, in response to a motion or claim by an adverse party seeking equitable relief, a party will argue that the relief sought should be denied on the basis that the moving party has not come to court with 'clean hands'. This update traces the origin of what is often referred to as the 'doctrine of clean hands' and examines recent cases where: l a moving party has been denied equitable relief on the basis that it came to court with unclean hands; and l such arguments did not defeat the moving party's claim. Origins The doctrine of clean hands originated in the English courts of chancery as a limit to a party's right to equitable relief, where the party had acted inequitably in respect of the matter. In the seminal case Toronto (City) v Polai,(1) the Ontario Court of Appeal provided some insight into the origins and purpose of the doctrine: "The maxim 'he who comes into equity must come with clean hands' which has been invoked mostly in cases between private litigants, requires a plaintiff seeking equitable relief to show that his past record in the transaction is clean: Overton v. Banister (1844), 3 Hare 503, 67 E.R. 479; Nail v. Punter (1832), 5 Sim. 555, 58 E.R. 447; Re Lush's Trust (1869), L.R. 4 Ch. App. 591. These cases present instances of the Court's refusal to grant relief to the plaintiff because of his wrongful conduct in the very matter which was the subject of the suit in equity."(2) Although the court declined to use the doctrine to dismiss the appellant's action for an injunction in that case, it did set the stage for the maxim's future use in Canadian courts. -
The Right of a Defaulting Vendee to the Restitution of Instalments Paid
YALE LAW JOURNAL VOL XL. l\'l.A.Y, 1931 No.7 THE RIGHT OF A D~~FAITLTING VENDEE TO THE RESTITUTION OF INSTALl\fENTS PAID THE question whether a vendee of land, ,vho defaults after hav ing ,paid one or more instalments of the price, can maintain an action for the recovery of any part of such instalments, is but a subordinate part of a larger problem. When can any contractor who is himself in default get judgment for compensation for a part performance rendered by 11im? It is a question of vital import to building contractors, sellers and buyers of goods, em ployees who have quit service or have been discharged for cause, as well as to vendees of land. In all these cases alike, there are conflict and inconsistency and differences of opinion as to what public policy and the general welfare require. The position of the defaulting vendee, however, has generally not been consci ously related to the other types of cases. In order to reconcile decisions, to eliminate actual conflict in the future, and to construct a consistent system of law, it is necessary to give more definite consideration to the equitable rules against the enforcement of penalties and forfeitures. If a contractor has committed a total breach of his contract, hav ing rendered no performance whatever thereunder, no penalty or forfeiture will be enforced against him; he will be required to do no more than to make the injured party whole by paying full compensatory damages. In like manner, a contractor who com mits a breach after he has rendered part performance must also make the injured party whole by payment of full compensatory damages. -
Doctrine of Unclean Hands (Cole V. Cole, 100 App. Div. 296 (3D Dep't 1944))
St. John's Law Review Volume 19 Number 2 Volume 19, April 1945, Number 2 Article 11 Domestic Relations--Doctrine of Unclean Hands (Cole v. Cole, 100 App. Div. 296 (3d Dep't 1944)) St. John's Law Review Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/lawreview This Recent Development in New York Law is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in St. John's Law Review by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1945 ] RECENT DECISIONS to have made the oral agreement is no longer able to make a denial.5 In the present case, the court dismissed the complaint for to do otherwise would be to frustrate the above intention of the legislature. It was further intended by the legislature that this provision was to cover agreements made to take effect at or after death, 6 and inasmuch as in this case the alleged agreement could not be completed until the promisor's death, it was void. This is directly in line with the majority of decisions in New York. In a recent case 7 in point, it was held that an oral agreement by an employee irrevocably designat- ing plaintiff sole beneficiary of employee's interest at his death in New York City Retirement Fund was void under this same provision of the Statute of Frauds. The intention of the legislature in passing a statute of frauds and this amendment has always been to prevent fraud. -
“Clean Hands” Doctrine
Announcing the “Clean Hands” Doctrine T. Leigh Anenson, J.D., LL.M, Ph.D.* This Article offers an analysis of the “clean hands” doctrine (unclean hands), a defense that traditionally bars the equitable relief otherwise available in litigation. The doctrine spans every conceivable controversy and effectively eliminates rights. A number of state and federal courts no longer restrict unclean hands to equitable remedies or preserve the substantive version of the defense. It has also been assimilated into statutory law. The defense is additionally reproducing and multiplying into more distinctive doctrines, thus magnifying its impact. Despite its approval in the courts, the equitable defense of unclean hands has been largely disregarded or simply disparaged since the last century. Prior research on unclean hands divided the defense into topical areas of the law. Consistent with this approach, the conclusion reached was that it lacked cohesion and shared properties. This study sees things differently. It offers a common language to help avoid compartmentalization along with a unified framework to provide a more precise way of understanding the defense. Advancing an overarching theory and structure of the defense should better clarify not only when the doctrine should be allowed, but also why it may be applied differently in different circumstances. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1829 I. PHILOSOPHY OF EQUITY AND UNCLEAN HANDS ...................... 1837 * Copyright © 2018 T. Leigh Anenson. Professor of Business Law, University of Maryland; Associate Director, Center for the Study of Business Ethics, Regulation, and Crime; Of Counsel, Reminger Co., L.P.A; [email protected]. Thanks to the participants in the Discussion Group on the Law of Equity at the 2017 Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Conference, the 2017 International Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Conference, and the 2018 Pacific Southwest Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Conference. -
Specific Performance Anthony T
Specific Performance Anthony T. Kronmant In an important article,' Calabresi and Melamed distinguish two different techniques for protecting legal entitlements. One they call a "property" rule and the other a "liability" rule. According to Calabresi and Melamed, a right or entitlement is protected by a property rule when it can be appropriated by a non-owner only if 2 he first purchases permission to do so from the owner of the right. When a right is protected by a rule of this sort, one who appropriates it without the owner's permission will always be subject to a special sanction-typically, a fine or imprisonment.' If a right is protected by a liability rule, in contrast, a non-owner who unilaterally appro- priates it need only compensate the owner, after the taking, for any loss the owner suffers.4 The compensatory amount which a non- owner must pay for taking a right protected by a liability rule is set by a representative of the state rather than by the owner of the right in a voluntary transaction between owner and taker. Calabresi and Melamed attempt to explain why some legal entitlements are protected by a property rule and others by a liabil- ity rule. They suggest that in certain cases the cost of negotiating the voluntary transfer of a right may be sufficiently high to frustrate the transfer. Where this is so, a property rule, which is intended to encourage transfers of this sort, is likely to promote an inefficient allocation of resources. This point is illustrated by automobile acci- dents and pollution torts.5 In both cases, a voluntary transfer of entitlements is almost certain to be prohibitively expensive: in the case of an automobile accident because of the cost of identifying the victim beforehand, and in the case of pollution torts because of free- t Assistant Professor of Law, The University of Chicago. -
In the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama Southern Division
Case 1:08-cv-00204-CG-C Document 69 Filed 01/26/11 Page 1 of 15 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA SOUTHERN DIVISION CHICAGO TITLE INSURANCE ) COMPANY, as assignee of ) WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) CIVIL ACTION NO. 08-00204-CG-C ) GERALD LLOYD PROSCH, ) ) Defendant. ) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER This matter is before the court on plaintiff=s motion for summary judgment. (Doc. 50), defendant’s opposition thereto (Doc. 64), and plaintiff’s reply (Doc. 68). For the reasons that will be explained below, the court finds that summary judgment is due to be granted in favor of plaintiff. FACTS Plaintiff=s amended complaint asserts seven counts against defendant, Gerald Lloyd Prosch: I) unjust enrichment, II) equitable subrogation, III) constructive trust, IV) breach of statutory warranty of title, V) breach of express warranty of title, VI) negligence, VII) wantonness, and VIII) indemnity. (Amended Complaint, Doc. 29). The parties generally do not dispute the underlying facts in this case, but dispute their legal significance. (See Doc. 64, ¶ 2). Defendant owned Lot 4, Cothran Oaks, (“the property”) encumbered by a note and mortgage in favor of Colonial Bank. In August 1999, defendant sold the property, via a vendor’s Case 1:08-cv-00204-CG-C Document 69 Filed 01/26/11 Page 2 of 15 lien deed1, to Lawanda and Travis Mathews. (Doc. 52-3). Travis Mathews executed a quitclaim deed in Lawanda Mathews’ favor on November 27, 2001. (Doc. 52-4). In April 2002, defendant agreed to sell the property to Lawanda Mathews and he cancelled the vendor’s lien. -
Limitations on the Availability of Specific Performance
COMMENTS past history so that they may impose an appropriate penalty,"s but this pro- cedure greatly increases the possibility that the verdict will be influenced by factors not relevant to the question of the defendant's guilt or innocence. 33 When the court imposes punishment the jury must be discouraged from ac- quitting defendants whose guilt is certain but whom they are unwilling to con- vict because they fear that the penalty will be too harsh. Permitting the jury to recommend mercy is therefore desirable, since it would tend to eliminate that fear. Yet if the rule of reasonable doubt is to be adhered to, either juries must be more strictly controlled in making recommendations of mercy, or it must be ad- mitted that the policy of the law has changed and that in doubtful cases it is now preferable to convict defendants and allow jurors to ease their consciences in so doing by convincing themselves that the penalty will be light. LIMITATIONS ON THE AVAILABILITY OF SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE Normally the damages which are awarded for breach of contract are intended to put a plaintiff in as good a position as he would have been in had the agree- ment been carried out. Such expectation damages insure a rough measure of compensation for hard-to-prove or hard-to-measure elements of reliance and for the distress and insecurity which result from failure to keep promises. In addition, good guesses about future needs in our free enterprise economy are rewarded. One would therefore naturally expect that the plaintiff would be given, whenever possible, an exact equivalent of performance, rather than its approximation in damages. -
The Clean-Hands Defense in Patent Infringement Suits
NOTES THE CLEAN-HANDS DEFENSE IN PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUITS: AN EXPANDED CONCEPT* Two factors have combined to make the patent field particularly fruitful of conflict between private claim and public interest. The first is the double aspect of the patent itself, as a sanction of exclusive privilege, purportedly1 granted in furtherance of a broad social objective. The second, and the more specific, is the extensive overlap of the domains controlled by the frankly monopolistic patent system and by the anti-trust laws. A special and acute problem under the latter head arises with respect to the so-called "tying clauses", by means of which the patentee seeks to impose upon his licensee, as a condition of license, an obligation to purchase from the patentee or from his nominee other goods or materials, for use in connection with the inven- tion.2 Section 3 of the Clayton Act 3 lays an interdiction upon such contracts where they result in lessening of competition or creation of monopoly. Two separable questions are suggested by the tying-contracts practice, and are raised by the Morton Salt case.4 First, by whom and under what cir- cumstances may the illegality or repugnance to public policy of the tying clause be raised? Secondly, how broad a conception of public policy is to govern the disposition of such a plea? Prior to the principal case, these questions had been set in a very different theoretical framework from that which must be constructed to accommodate the present holding. * Morton Salt Co. v. G. S. Suppiger Co., 62 Sup. -
Specific Performance of Contracts for Delivery of Personal Property
Marquette Law Review Volume 10 Article 1 Issue 2 February 1926 Specific eP rformance of Contracts for Delivery of Personal Property William J. Morgan Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation William J. Morgan, Specific erP formance of Contracts for Delivery of Personal Property, 10 Marq. L. Rev. 59 (1926). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol10/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Marquette Law Review VOL. 10 FEBRUARY, 1926 No. 2 SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE OF CONTRACTS FOR DELIVERY OF PERSONAL PROPERTY WILLIAM J. MORGAN* T IS the writer's purpose to discuss here the remedy of specific per- formance of contracts calling for the delivery of ordinary kinds of personal property such as wood, clay, vegetables, and so forth, and not unique articles such as heirlooms, objects of art, controlling stock in a corporation, and so forth, the specific delivery of unique personality being required almost as a matter of course. The discussion following seeks to demonstrate that a rather common expression of courts and even text writers: "That equity will not decree the specific performance of a contract for the delivery of personal property, which is not unique (such as heirlooms, and so forth)" is a misstatement of a rule of law, and that whether the remedy of specific performance can be successfully invoked has no relation to the charac- ter of the property involved. -
1 No. 113,156 in the COURT of APPEALS of the STATE OF
No. 113,156 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS WATCO COMPANIES, INC., d/b/a SOUTH KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA RAILROAD, Appellant, v. SHANE CAMPBELL and JERRY STANDLEE, Appellees. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. Documents obtained through a request for production of documents may, in the court's discretion, be relied upon as authentic for purposes of a summary judgment motion because the method in which they are obtained lends them credibility. 2. Where there is no factual dispute, appellate review of an order regarding summary judgment is de novo. 3. The district court's reasons for granting or denying summary judgment are immaterial if the ruling was correct for any reason. 4. Comparative implied indemnity or, as it is more accurately termed, postsettlement contribution describes the cause of action initiated by a tortfeasor in a negligence lawsuit to recover from a joint tortfeasor the share of the damages proportional to the joint tortfeasor's fault. 1 5. When total damages have not been fixed by judicial proceeding but by compromise and settlement between the plaintiff and a defendant, the amount the defendant has paid in full settlement for all damages is the maximum amount subject to be apportioned among joint tortfeasors. 6. A carrier against whom suit is brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) for injuries sustained by an employee within Kansas has a right of contribution or comparative implied indemnity against a third-party tortfeasor if (1) the third party's negligence partially caused or contributed to the injury or damages, (2) the carrier had some causal negligence, and (3) the injured employee's causal negligence is less than 50%. -
Specific Performance Under the Uniform Commercial Code-Will Liberalism Prevail?
DePaul Law Review Volume 26 Issue 1 Fall 1976 Article 4 Specific erP formance under the Uniform Commercial Code - Will Liberalism Prevail? Michael A. Schmitt Michael Pasterczyk Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review Recommended Citation Michael A. Schmitt & Michael Pasterczyk, Specific erP formance under the Uniform Commercial Code - Will Liberalism Prevail?, 26 DePaul L. Rev. 54 (1976) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol26/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Law Review by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE UNDER THE UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE-WILL LIBERALISM PREVAIL? Michael A. Schmitt* and Michael Pasterczyk** The extraordinaryremedy of specific performance rarely was available to a buyer at common law. This Article illustrateshow the Uniform Commercial Code intentionally broadened the pos- sibility of specific performance as a buyer's remedy. This exten- sion is accomplished by a general mandate for liberal interpreta- tion and an expansion of the uniqueness requirement to include "otherproper circumstances" when specific performance should be granted. The authors conclude with a recommendation that equitable principles govern the situations when a buyer's de- mand for specific performance conflicts with a seller's defense of commercial impracticability. INTRODUCTION Fundamental to any discussion of specific performance under the Uniform Commercial Code is a basic understanding of those concepts which form the essence of the law of contracts. The power to breach a contract historically has been almost as sacred as the freedom to form a contract. -
Contracts 8 24
QUESTION 3 On Mayl, Buyer received the following letter: Dear Buyer: I have decided to give up my ranch and move to town. I thought that you might consider buying it from me. I will sell it to you for its current market value, $80,000. Call me by May 10. I will keep this proposal open, and will not withdraw it, until after that date. IS/ Seller The next day, Buyer mentioned to a friend, Mary, that he was considering buying the ranch. Mary responded that an acquaintance of hers, Jody, also had received an offer from Seller to purchase the ranch. Buyer immehately went home and prepared a letter of acceptance, addressed to Seller, and deposited it in the mail at 9:30 A.M. At 10:OO A.M. on May 2, Seller entered into a written agreement with Jody for the purchase of the ranch. At 2:00 P.M. on May 2, Buyer called Seller to arrange for a survey of the ranch. Seller informed Buyer that he had already sold the ranch. Upon hearing this, Buyer exclaimed, "We have a deal. I sent you an acceptance this morning by mail." QUESTION: Discuss whether there is a contract between Buyer and Seller and the basis for your conclusion. DISCUSSION FOR QUESTION 3 An offer is a manifestation of willingness to enter into a bargain so made as to justify another person in understandmg that his assent to that bargain is invited and will conclude it. Res.2d Contracts 8 24. In this case Seller's letter is an offer, since under the objective test of intent, a reasonable person in Buyer's position would understand that Seller was in fact seeking Buyer's assent to his invitation.