Case ID: conn_28/html/0273-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Sanforb, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Treat vs. Joseph S. Jones.
    The plaintiff, a counsellor at law, instigated the defendant with others to engage in a riot, and promised to defend them if they were prosecuted. The defendant was prosecuted, and employed the plaintiff to defend him. The plaintiff afterwards sued him for his services and disbursements in defending him. Held that he could not recover.
    If there bad been nothing unlawful in the acts of the defendant, yet the plaintiff could not recover, as his services were rendered upon consideration of the performance of those acts, and in fulfillment of his promise to render them if the acts were performed.
    But, aside from this view, the unlawfulness of the acts which the plaintiff procured the defendant to perform, vitiated the whole contract between the parties, and on grounds of public policy the plaintiff ought not to be allowed to recover.
    *Book debt. The plaintiff was a counsellor at [ *335 ] law, and brought the suit to recover for professional fees and disbursements.
    The case, was referred to an auditor, who found that the defendant employed the plaintiff to defend him in certain public prosecutions and that the services were rendered and money paid by the plaintiff in so defending him ; and found that the defendant was indebted to the plaintiff’ in the sum off $48, if the plaintiff was entitled to recover anything. But the auditor further found that, shortly before the prosecutions referred to, the defendant with sundry others was engaged in a riot, and that the plaintiff was one of the instigators of the riot and encouraged the defendant and others to take part in it, by promising to defend them, by urging them on, and by shouting and swingeing his hat; and that the account of the plaintiff was wholly for services rendered and money paid by him for the defendant, in prosecutions against the defendant for the riot.
    Upon these facts the auditor submitted the question as one of law to the court, whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover. The superior court rendered judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant brought the case before this court by motion in error.
    
      Hubbard and Ransom., for the plaintiff in error.
    1. The act which the plaintiff instigated the defendant to commit was a crime, and the plaintiff knew it to be so, and promised to defend him if he would engage in it. This promise was a guaranty to the defendant that he would save him harmless. The services having been rendered only in fulfillment of this promise, the plaintiff can not recover any other compensation.
    2. The plaintiff at the time was an attorney at this bar, an officer of this court, and under his license has no right to maintain an action for fees, unless they have accrued to him in some meritorious manner, conformably with the obligations of his oath and with the duties imposed upon and privileges [ *836 ] *granted to him by his admission to practice at the bar. Brackett v. Norton, 4 Conn., 517.
    3. The law will permit no man to take advantage of his own wrong for any purpose whatever. A party calling in the aid of the law to enforce a claim or right, must come into court with clean hands. So jealous is the law, that it will afford no aid to a man to enforce a claim connected with, or proceeding from, an illegal transaction. Biggs v. Lawrence, 3 T. R., 454. Clugas v. Penaluna, 4 id., 466. Waymell v. Reed, 5 id., 599. Holman v. Johnson, Cowp., 343. Griswold, v. Wadding-ton, 16 John., 438, 486. Sturges v. Bush, 5 Day, 452. Armstrong v. Toler, 11 Wheat., 258. Worcester v. Eaton, 11 Mass., 368. Farmer v. Russell, 1 Bos. & Pul., 299. Lightfoot v. Tenant, id., 556. Chitty on Cont., 332. And so strenuous have the courts been in the enforcement of this principle, that they have extended it to the indorsee of negotiable paper,- taken with knowledge that it grew out of an illegal transaction. Steers v. Lashley, 6 T. R., 61. Brown v. Turner, 7 id., 630. Amory v. Merryweather, 2 Barn. & Cress., 573. Steers v. Lashley, 1 Esp., 166.
    
      
      Graves and Cothren, for the defendant in error.
    To constitute a defense in this case the' contract must have been in furtherance of an illegal act. In this case it is admitted that the illegal act had transpired before the services of the plaintiff were solicited or rendered. The plaintiff does not found his action on any illegal contract. The test whether a demand, connected with an illegal transaction, is capable of being enforced at law, is, whether the plaintiff requires any aid from the illegal transaction to establish his case. Chitty on Cont., 332, 333. The plaintiff’s claim is founded on his legal services, and not on an antecedent or intended riot. Consequently he requires no aid from'that transaction to establish his claim. The plaintiff seeks to enforce no illegal contract. It is the' defendant who seeks to avoid payment for the legal services of the plaintiff, by setting up, not an illegal contract, but equal guilt with himself *in the transaction, to defend against the con- [ *337 ] sequences of which the defendant employed him. It is conceded that the defendant could not sustain a suit against the plaintiff to compel him to pay the expenses of defending the prosecution against the defendant; and, if so, can he plead an illegal contract by way of set-off to the plaintiff’s claim for his legal services and disbursements ? Suppose the plaintiff had agreed to pay the defendant $100 for engaging in the riot, and at the same time held a prior valid note of'hand for the same amount. Could the defendant, in' an action on the note, set off the sum promised by the illegal contract ? All the authorities cited by the defendant treat exclusively of cases which contemplate the future execution of contracts unlawful in themselves. See 1 Swift’s Dig., 215, and authorities there cited.
   Sanforb, J.

The plaintiff, then an attorney and counsellor at law, being one of the instigators arid promoters of á riot, encouraged the defendant to take part in it, by urging him on, and by promising to defend him. The defendant was prosecuted for that riot, and the plaintiff, being employed by him as his counsel, made the promised defense, and, for his expenses and professional services in the making of that defense, he seeks to recover in this suit. No principle of law or justice warrants such recovery. '

It is true, as the plaintiff contends, that the plaintiff’s promise to defend could not have been enforced1 by suit. The'considation for it was illegal, and “ ex turpi causa non oritur actio.” But, having been performed, the law will not aid him to recover compensation for it. In such a case the law leaves the parties where it finds them. ...

Had the entire transaction been a legal one, it would be unjust to compel the defendant to pay this demand. He paid the stipulated compensation for this defense before it was made, and no matter whether that compensation was adequate or inadequate, beneficial to the plaintiff or otherwise, he ought not to be required to pay it again.

But there are vital principles of public policy which [ *338 ] forbid *the court to lend its aid for the enforcement of a claim like this. The object of all law is to repress vice, preserve the peace, and promote the general welfare of the state and of society, and no individual has any right to its assistance in enforcing a demand origináting in a violation on his part of its principles or enactments.”

It is indeed found by the auditor, that the defendant employed the plaintiff as his counsel to defend him, (whether before or after the riot, does not appear,) but it is not found that, upon such employment or retainer, the defendant undertook to make the plaintiff any compensation, other than the riotous services which had been already rendered at the plaintiff’s instigation. We can not presume that the employment was any other than that originally provided for, or the defense made by the plaintiff, any other than that which he had promised. The fair import of the whole finding is, that to induce the defendant to engage in the riot, the plaintiff promised to defend him against the expected prosecutions, and that, when the prosecutions came, the defendant requested the plaintiff to perform his promise, and he did so. The plaintiff can not now repudiate his promise and compel the defendant to make him further compensation. It would be a reproach to the law, if its courts could be made the instrument of enforcing a claim like this.

It is claimed that the plaintiff is not seeking to enforce an illegal contract, because the auditor finds that “ the plaintiff was employed by the defendant as his counsel,” &c. But he is seeking to enforce a contract which originated in his own illegal instigation to the commission of a crime, without which instigation that crime might not have been committed, and so no occasion for the plaintiff’s services have arisen.

The contract on which the recovery is claimed was incurably vitiated in its origin by the plaintiff’s illegal conduct in relation to it, and the groundlessness of the plaintiff’s claim is equalled only by his effrontery in bringing it to the notice of

[ *339 ] *the court. . The judgment of the superior court must be reversed.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.

Judgment reversed.