Court Opinion

ID: 9669395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:54:54.434408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:56.170550
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
( concurring in affirmance). This being an equity case, and the equities being all one way, I would affirm on ground that the plaintiff town*149ship stands at equity’s fount in no better position than would a similarly situated private suitor.*
Having issued the permit and having encouraged defendants to proceed as they did, the township, even though free technically from estoppel, is not entitled to abatement — that is, destruction — -by equity’s process of defendants’ expensively constructed and manifestly valuable business. By the quoted rule there is a limit, to the sometimes legally superior rights of a sovereign State and its various units of government, when that State or any such unit comes into a court of equity to assert a claim. In that forum at least no party stands higher than nor preferred over any other party.
I concur in affirmance.

 “When the United States [here the plaintiff township] comes into court to assert a claim, it so far takes the position of a private suitor as to agree by implication that justice may be done with regard to the subject matter.” (Quotation from Hunt v. State Highway Commissioner, 350 Mich 309, 321, following United States v. Norwegian Barque “Thekla,” 266 US 328 [45 S Ct 112, 69 L ed 313].)
See application of this principle to Auditor General v. Klenk, 367 Mich 65, 70.