By Chinua Asuzu
The common-law equivalent of this equitable maxim is Ex turpi causa non oritur actio.
This maxim He who comes into equity must come with clean hands may remind you of a similar one (He who seeks equity must do equity), but they differ in this respect: He who comes into equity must come with clean hands is retrospective, “looking to the past rather than the future. The plaintiff not only must be prepared now to do what is right and fair, but must also show that his past record in the transaction is clean.” Snell’s Principles of Equity, 28th ed, (P. V. Baker & P. St J. Langan, eds), Sweet & Maxwell, 1982, 33.
As was said in the days of old, “he who has committed Iniquity … shall not have Equity.” Jones v Lenthal (1669) 1 Ch. Cas. 154 (uppercasing in original).
The maxim requires the suitor in equity to have behaved irreproachably regarding the equitable relief sought.
The maxim does not demand a saintly biography: “Equity does not demand that its suitors shall have led blameless lives.” Loughran v Loughran, 292 US 216, 229 (1934) (Brandeis J).
A general depravity on the part of the suitor in equity will not preclude him or her from seeking equitable relief; only a depravity specific to the equitable relief sought will conjure up the maxim, a depravity with “an immediate and necessary relation to the equity sued for.” Dering v Earl of Winchelsea (1787) 1 Cox Eq. 318, 319, 320.
