Court Opinion

ID: 9766861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:00:44.477427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:26.753034
License: Public Domain

Prescott and Horney, JJ.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
Gotthard Hanson, the appellee-plaintiff, who once admitted that he had committed perjury in the very court of equity in which he is now seeking relief, does not deny that his membership in the union of which he claims he is still a member *314was originally obtained by misrepresentation, deceit, and fraud. Actually the appellee did not “recant” his perjury, as we understand the meaning of the word, although the majority says that he did. The fact is that when confronted by a witness who was present to expose the appellee’s perjury, he then admitted it.
After a series of suits in this and other jurisdictions concerning the same matter as to which this suit is only another phase, and the lapse of over ten years, the appellee had the temerity to file in the same court in which he committed the admitted perjury his bill of complaint seeking the extraordinary remedy of a mandatory injunction to compel the appellant-defendant, the Local No. 101 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, to restore his membership in the Local of which he claims the International Union illegally deprived him.
The Chancellor held that he was entitled to the injunction and so ordered. The majority of this Court, after modifying the order so as to permit reinstatement without prejudice, has affirmed the decree of the Chancellor. We disagree. In our opinion the plaintiff is in court with unclean hands, and is, therefore, not entitled to enforce the restoration of his ill-gotten union membership.
While it is true, that equity does not require that suitors shall have lived blameless lives, especially in regard to unrelated matters, it has often been held that no action arises out of fraud and deceit, nor does a right accrue to any one out of his own wrong. There are innumerable cases in which these principles of law have been applied. See, for example, Bein v. Heath, 47 U. S. (6 How.) 228 (1848) ; Kitchen v. Rayburn, 86 U. S. (19 Wall.) 254 (1873); Deweese v. Reinhard, 165 U. S. 386 (1897); Picture Plays Theatre Co. v. Williams, 75 Fla. 556, 78 So. 674 (1918); Rust v. Gillespie, 90 Okla. 59, 216 P. 480 (1923); O’Gasapian v. Danielson, 284 Mass. 27, 187 N. E. 107 (1933), to illustrate the principle of law with which we are here concerned. See also 19 Am. Jur., Equity, Sec. 471, and the annotation in 4 A. L. R. 44(1919).
The same principles have also been expounded by many *315law writers of the subject of equity jurisprudence. In 2 Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence (5th ed. 1941), Sec. 401, it is stated:
“Whatever be the nature of the plaintiff’s claim and of the relief he seeks, if his claim grows out of or depends upon, or is inseparately connected with, his own prior fraud, a court of equity * * * will leave him to whatever remedies and defenses at law he may have.” (Emphasis added.)
See also Note, 32 B. U. L. Rev. 66, 68 (1952).
Professor Chafee in his Problems of Equity (1950), p. 31, aptly stated:
“The real objection is not to one man’s unclean hands, but to the whole enterprise. The court does not want to touch an unlawful transaction with a ten-foot pole. It always refuses to help carry it out, and it often refuses to pick up the pieces after the enterprise has fallen apart. Courts were set up to enforce the law, not to enforce violations of law.” (Emphasis added.)
As we see it the applicability of the maxim depends upon the connection between the appellee’s iniquitous acts and the appellant’s conduct. In other words the question to be resolved in this action is whether the appellee’s wrongful conduct is connected with, or related to, the dispute and not whether the appellant has been injured. Cf. Carpenters’ Union v. Citizens’ Comm., 333 Ill. 225, 164 N. E. 393 (1928).
We believe that the decree of the Chancellor should be reversed and that the bill should be dismissed.