Reynolds v. Boland

Citations

• 202 Pa. 642
• 52 A. 19
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 578

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Contract—Specific performance — Clean hands.</p> <p>If a contract has been entered into by fraud or to accomplish any fraudulent purpose, a court of equity will not, at the suit of one of the fraudulent parties, a partieeps doli, while the agreement is still executory, either compel its execution or decree its cancellation, nor after it has been executed set it aside, and thus restore the plaintiff to the interests which he has fraudulently transferred. Equity will leave such parties in exactly the same position in which they have placed themselves, refusing all affirmative aid to either of the fraudulent participants. The only equitable remedies which they can obtain are purely defensive. Upon the same principle, whenever one party, in pursuance of a prior arrangement has fraudulently obtained property for the benefit of another, equity will not aid the fraudulent beneficiary by compelling a conveyance or transfer to him; and, generally, where two or more have entered into a fraudulent scheme for the purpose of obtaining property in which all are to share, and the scheme has been carried out so that all the results of the fraud are in the hands of one of the parties, a court of equity will not interfere on behalf of the others to aid them in obtaining their share, but will leave the parties in the position where they have placed themselves.</p> <p>Who comes into equity must come with clean hands.</p> <p>Who does iniquity shall not have equity.</p> <p>Equity has no relief for a party who in the practice of one fraud has become the victim of another.</p> <p>In pari delicto melior est conditio defendentis.</p> <p>Where two persons enter into a contract the purpose of which is to deceive a third, equity will not compel its specific performance.</p> <p>Where one of several parties who are about to organize a corporation assigns all his interest in the proposed corporation to another of the parties, and the assignee executes an agreement in writing by which h