Court Opinion

ID: 9549606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:22:04.659467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:36.585501
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice.
I dissent.
At the outset I concede: that the rule of caveat emptor applies to a purchaser taking a tax title; that a quitclaim deed carries no warranty of title, special or otherwise; that it does not convey to the grantee the benefit of any after-acquired title which may come into the hands of the grantor ; and further that facts are not present here which would make out the elements of an equitable estoppel against the plaintiff. See 19 Am. Jur. 642; 31 C. J. S., Estoppel, § 66, p. 254.-
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I think that under the facts of this case the plaintiff is not entitled to have a court of equity quiet title to the property in him. The facts are accurately set out in the main opinion and in the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice HENRIOD. Plaintiff bought the tax title, and sold it for a substantial consideration to defendant’s predecessor; stood by while they paid the taxes, general and special for four years; then went out and purchased the legal title from the wife and daughter of Pittorf, the former owner. They had not paid any attention to the property nor paid any taxes upon it for twenty years. It *93is plain to be seen that the plaintiff actively sought and procured the legal title from them for a nominal consideration for the express purpose of undermining the title he sold to defendant.
The prevailing opinion would permit plaintiff to retain the purchase price he received for the land and to get the land back, which is exactly what was condemned by the Supreme Court of Missouri in the case of Clyburn v. McLaughlin cited in the main opinion. Such conduct, as I see it, does not square with honesty and fair dealing, and a court of equity should not reward plaintiff by affording him the remedy of quieting title in him. I am at a loss to understand how in justice and equity this court can permit it to be done.
No maxim of equity is older or more venerated than “He who seeks redress in a court of equity must come with clean hands.” The very foundation of equity is good conscience, and any conduct in connection with the matter in controversy which does not comport with good conscience should preclude any relief being granted to plaintiff. This doctrine is aptly stated in 2 Pomeroy’s Eq. Jur. 143 (5th Ed.) :
“A court of equity acts only when and as conscience commands; and if the conduct of the plaintiff be offensive to the dictates of natural justice, then whatever may be the right he possesses, and whatever use he may make of them in a court of law, he will he held remediless in a court of equity. Misconduct which will bar relief in a court of equity need not necessarily be of such nature as to be punishable as crime or to constitute the basis of legal action. Under this maxim, any willful act in regard to the matter in litigation, which would be condemned and pronounced wrongful by honest and fair-minded men, will be sufficient to make the hands of the applicant unclean” citing numerous authorities.
A case which well illustrates this point is Weegham v. Killefer, D. C., 215 F. 168, 170, affirmed 215 F. 289. Defendant Killefer had played baseball for the 1913 season with Philadelphia. His contract provided that upon terms later to be agreed upon he would play for Philadelphia the *94next season. Killefer signed a contract with the plaintiff Weegham to play for Chicago for the next three seasons at an increased salary. Philadelphia then engaged him at a still higher salary for the next three seasons. Weegham sought to enjoin Killefer from playing with Philadelphia because of the prior binding contract to play for Chicago.
The court recited that the contract with Chicago was valid and would ordinarily be enforceable; that furthermore the provision in the Philadelphia contract was not binding as to the future but was “nothing more than a contract to enter into a contract, in the future, if the parties can then agree to contract” and that it also lacked mutuality. Nevertheless, the court invoked the “clean hands” principle stating:
“Measuring and testing their [plaintiffs’] conduct by this rule, are the plaintiffs in court with clean hands? Knowing that the defendant, Killefer, was under a moral, if not a legal, obligation to furnish his services to the Philadelphia Club for the season of 1914, * * * by offering him a longer term of employment and a much larger compensation induced him to repudiate his obligation to his employer.”
The court pointed out that the injunction would be denied, not because the executory part of the 1913 contract with Philadelphia was of any legal force or effect, and not because there was any defect in the contract between plaintiffs and Killefer, nor yet because there were any equities in Killefer’s favor, but because the actions of the plaintiffs in procuring the contract did not square with good conscience and fair dealing.
Similarly in Heylandt Sales Company v. Welding Gas Products Company, 180 Tenn. 437, 175 S. W. 2d 557, complainant sued to cancel an issue to individual defendants of shares of stock in defendant corporation, charging that he had been denied participation in this new issue, in violation of rights reserved to him by the by-laws and by statute. Defendants admitted this but charged that the complainant *95had violated agreements theretofore made with the defendants that he would not acquire a majority of stock and secure control. The Court of Appeals held and the Supreme Court affirmed the holding that because, contrary to his promise, he had thus unfairly acquired control of the corporation, he could not maintain, in a court of equity, his legal right to have the stock issued to him. The holding was based squarely on the “clean hands” doctrine. In the case of Larkin v. Bank of America, etc., 93 Cal. App. 2d 594, 209 P. 2d 801, the court affirmed refusal to permit the defendant to set aside tax deeds through which plaintiff claimed certain property because it said that defendant’s own conduct had resulted in the tax proceedings against the property, and further, the defendant had remained inactive when good conscience and good faith would have required action pertaining to the property.
No useful purpose would be served by continuing to delineate herein other cases of this character. There is ho dearth of them. See 2 Pomeroy’s Eq. Jur. 143 (5th Ed.) ; 4 A. L. R. 44; 21 C. J. 184; 30 C. J. S., Equity, § 95, p. 481 and many cases there referred to in those texts. The latter states:
“It is not alone fraud or illegality which will prevent a suitor from entering a court of equity. Any willful act in regard to the matter in litigation, which would be condemned and pronounced wrongful by honest and fair-minded men will be sufficient to make the hands of applicant unclean”
so as to preclude his being aided by a court of equity.
Perusal of the authorities renders it abundantly clear that one who was resorted to bad faith or unfairness will appeal in vain to a court of conscience, even though he may have kept himself within the letter of the law. If this conduct of the plaintiff Dowse squares up with “honesty and fair dealing”, then I suppose my sense of justice must be a bit warped in this area. Likewise, I confess my inability to see how the holding I advocate would set any *96dangerous precedent or distort the well established rules conceded at the beginning of this opinion. I simply believe that good conscience requires that under the particular facts of this case, where plaintiff sold the title and conveyed his interest in the property for a substantial consideration, which he retains, he should thereafter be precluded from active connivance to defeat the title he has so sold in order to recapture the property for himself; and that a court of equity will not aid him in attempting to do so.
With due deference to the consideration which I know my brethren of the court have given this case, and their .judgment concerning it, I dissent from their view, believing that the case should be reversed.
WADE, J., concurs in dissenting opinion of CROCKETT, J.