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Coming Into Equity With Clean Hands, Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The most amusing maxim of equity is "He who comes into Equity must come with clean hands." It has given rise ,to many interesting cases and poor jokes. The maxim has been regarded as an especially significant manifestation of the ethical attitude of equity as contrasted with the common law. Pomeroy, for instance, argues that the principle involved in this maxim is "merely the expression of one of the elementary and fundamental conceptions of equity jurisprudence." Pomeroy's theory is that chancery has power to force a defendant to comply with the dictates of conscience as to matters outside the strict …