Court Opinion

ID: 9671520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:38:17.469905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:10.452581
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
¶ 32. (dissenting). The Majority correctly concludes that the trial court attempted to invoke its equitable powers to remedy a situation that it observed personally when, without objection by any of the parties, it determined that it could not maneuver into Suzanne Schultz's garage. Normally, that would *741end the matter, because whether to impose an equitable remedy is ordinarily within the trial court's discretion. Majority at ¶ 24. But a trial court erroneously exercises its discretion when it does something that is not consistent with established legal principles. Lievrouw v. Roth, 157 Wis. 2d 332, 348, 459 N.W.2d 850, 855 (Ct. App. 1990). Here, the trial court gave equitable relief to Schultz without first determining whether Schultz had "clean hands" in connection with her claim, see 27A Am. Juu 2d Equity § 126 (1996) ("The equitable doctrine of clean hands expresses the principle that where a party comes into equity for relief he or she must show that his or her conduct has been fair, equitable, and honest as to the particular controversy in issue."), a doctrine that also applies to adjoining landowners who have disputes over alleged encroachments, 1 Am. Jur 2d Adjoining Landowners § 137 (1994). Accordingly, the trial court erroneously exercised its discretion.
¶ 33. If there was ever a case where a plaintiff seeking equity has come into court with dirty hands, this is it. Both parties, Schultz included after she did the survey to which the Majority refers in ¶ 8, knew that Schultz's driveway encroached on Barbara Trascher's property. Trascher was perfectly willing to permit that, as long as her acquiescence would not lead to a claim of adverse possession. Schultz, however, was adamant that she already had Trascher's property by adverse possession and refused to agree to permit Trascher to score in the concrete the survey-validated property line. It was only then, and on advice of counsel, that Trascher went to the expense and hassle of putting up the fence to cut off the claims of adverse possession that Schultz was admittedly harboring.
¶ 34. A plaintiff may not get relief in equity if "it is the fruit of his own wrong, or relief from the *742consequences of his own unlawful act, which the plaintiff seeks." David Adler & Sons Co. v. Maglio, 200 Wis. 153, 160, 228 N.W. 123, 126 (1929) (quoted source omitted). The "wrong" or "unlawful conduct," of course, need not be criminal. Ibid. As Robert Frost once wrote in. Mending Wall, "good fences make good neighbors." If this is a "bad" fence, as the trial court found, then it is because Schultz was a bad neighbor. Her wrong gave birth to the fence. Accordingly, under established equitable principles, she has no right in equity to force its removal. I respectfully dissent.