In non-criminal matters, the clean hands doctrine, also called the unclean hands doctrine or dirty hands doctrine, states that a party is required to be free of wrongdoing (come with "clean hands") if it wants the court to issue a ruling in their favour. The "wrongdoing" may consist of breaking the law, or acting unethically, unfairly or in bad faith with respect to the other party of the complaint. The wrongdoing must be directly related to the specific case at hand and not be just "background" misbehaviour. The purpose of the doctrine is to prevent disingenuous parties from benefitting from their own misconduct.
Showing "unclean hands" is an affirmative defence, which the judge has discretion to not approve. If a party raises it, it has the burden of proof to show that the other party is being dishonest. It is generally invoked by a defendant to the lawsuit to avoid liability. But plaintiffs may also use it offensively, too, to deny the defendant the possibility to raise other defences. The doctrine typically applies to equitable remedies only (e.g. requests for an injunction or specific performance), but some jurisdictions also allow application to suits in law (such as those seeking damages).
The clean hands doctrine is rooted in Roman law. Its outlines were made explicit in 18th-century practice of courts of equity in English law, and for that reason it has since become an integral part of common law jurisprudence. Civil law systems also have the related concept of prevention of "abuse of rights". However, scholars cannot agree if the clean hands doctrine is a universal principle of law. In particular, international law is reluctant to adopt the rule in full, although it has not explicitly rejected it, either.
Description The doctrine prevents those who have acted wrongly in some way relating to the matter at hand from receiving the help they seek from the courts, even if they are otherwise right in the case. This happens regardless of how the adversary has treated them. It will also apply to, for example, unjust enrichment cases when the misled wrongdoer tries to recover funds from an innocent party.
The party which acted dishonourably is said to have "unclean hands". Claiming "unclean hands" is normally something a defendant does, but it is possible for the plaintiff to do this, too. In some areas, the court adjudicating the case may consider this doctrine even if no one argued it. However, if this is not the case, at least in US legal tradition, it is generally required that such defence be raised at trial.
In general, the concept applies to lawsuits in equity (such as when requesting injunctions or specific performance), but with law-equity distinction becoming much less important, it is gradually expanding to suits in law. Tradition holds that the doctrine may not be used to ask for damages (a typical remedy in suits in law), but this too is changing.
The doctrine does not require blameless conduct in all domains of life. A party which wants to use it must show that bad actions are directly related to the current case.. "While equity does not require that its suitors shall have led blameless lives as to other matters, it does require that they shall have acted without fraud or deceit as to the matter in issue.". See also In other words, "if someone is a liar, a thief, or a notorious bad actor in general but not in a given transaction, equity is still available to that person." It also generally applies to given parties in the case only. The consequence is that, for example, in patent cases, unclean hands will merely render the patent unenforceable in a given case, and not invalid. However, the conduct that gives rise to the "unclean hands" defence does not need to be illegal. Non-criminal bad-faith, unethical or unfair behaviour may also be used as a basis of invoking the rule.
The principle that parties must come to the court with "clean hands" is absolute. But this does not mean that any violation of that principle will result in dismissal of claims, and in fact it must not be applied blindly. If the public interest in not dismissing the claims is overwhelming, or if following the doctrine is unlikely to further the interests of justice, the judge has discretion to disapply it. For example, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dismissed the unclean hands defence in an antitrust case that would have undermined the purpose of competition law.Gen. Leaseways, Inc. v. Nat’l. Truck Leasing Assoc., 744 F.2d 588, 597 (7th Cir. 1984) Similarly, minor misconduct is unlikely to invalidate claims. It may occasionally be the case that the court will have to choose a "lesser evil" between denying access to justice to a party and averting a greater harm, such as of unjust enrichment.
The doctrine may apply to both parties at the same time if both parties are guilty of misconduct, which results in neither party getting what it wants. This is partially covered in the Latin maxim of . However, there are two differences. Unlike that maxim, the clean hands doctrine allows denying relief to any party found to be involved in wrongdoing, regardless of the degree of blame. also explicitly says that where the degree of blame is equal, the plaintiff will not get the upper hand in the lawsuit.
Appearance in English law An article in Conveyancer and Property Lawyer, a law journal, traced back the origin of the doctrine in English law to around 1600 at the latest. Initially it seemed to only apply to cases where the plaintiff was found to have done something illegal (such as fraud), but there were cases such as Gobe v Dore (1604) which explicitly barred remedies for non-criminal but improper conduct. In that dispute, the plaintiff tried to deceive the landlord, whom he had poor relations with. The plan was to give money to the defendant as to make his name appear on the copyhold, but have the defendant let the plaintiff de facto use the parcel even though the landlord did not want it. The court denied eviction of the defendant, and so the plaintiff lost £100 (£ in pounds). Other precursor cases are Jones v. Lenthal (1669), the Bodly’s Case (1679) and Small v. Brackley (1702).
The doctrine was explicitly formulated in the cases Fitzroy v. Gwillim (1786; Court of King's Bench, opinion by Chief Justice Lord Mansfield) and Dering v. Earl of Winchelsea (1787; Court of the Exchequer, Lord Chief Baron Eyre), respectively, from which the concept spread to other common law countries.
Alternative formulations The doctrine may be restated as two legal maxims applied in cases about equity: "those seeking equity must do equity" and "he who comes into equity must come with clean hands". These principle are distinct in that the former applies to future conduct while the latter applies to conduct that already happened.
Sometimes it is also expressed by two maxims in Latin, and (an unlawful act/a dishonourable cause cannot serve as the basis of an action at law).
A. P. Herbert's Uncommon Law provided two other adages: "A good cause of action cannot be founded on a moral swamp", or a "less elegant" one, "A dirty dog will get no dinner from the Courts."
The doctrine is closely related to the (“you too!”) argument. In short, blaming or condemning someone for wrongdoing that they are themselves guilty of is hypocritical. This would be analogous to "pot calling the kettle black", or to saying "Look who's talking!" in informal speech.
Purpose There are several reasons for adoption of this doctrine. The main one is that it prevents a dishonest party from profiting from its own wrongdoing. It also prevents the party from defeating the adversary's defences, because there is a principle in common law systems that using an equitable defence to further inequities is abusive. That said, these systems distinguish equitable remedies from legal remedies, and the latter cannot be barred by claiming "unclean hands".
Another goal of this doctrine is to protect judicial integrity, because the courts would otherwise be encouraging the wrongdoing by making themselves an instrument of injustice. There is also the question of finding a convenient term for protecting the public interest in cases where the bad conduct causes harm to unrelated people.
Ori Herstein of Cornell Law School and the Restatements of the Law also see the doctrine in punitive terms. This is because it lets wrongdoers know that their right to be heard in court may be forfeit due to their bad actions. This has a positive side effect of deterring dishonest parties from bad conduct. However, US courts, including the Supreme Court, often write that the doctrine is not meant to punish.
Examples of application
An employee settled his workplace accident lawsuit against a school in Alabama for $40,000, with the condition that the money be spent on relevant medical expenses. The school set up accounts at local pharmacies in his name so that he could buy medication. However, a school official noticed that he misused the money to buy products that were not related to his back injury. The accounts were terminated, effectively locking the employee out of his settlement funds. He sued to reopen the account. However, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals refused because the employee violated the terms of the settlement he had agreed to.Holy Family Catholic School v. Boley, 847 So. 2d 371 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002) Citizens of Lake County, Indiana denied re-election to a county commissioner by choosing his opponent in the primary. The rival won the general election. The plaintiff was a protégé of the ousted commissioner. Due to his connections, he was employed by the county in what he admitted was a sinecure. Providing "ghost employment" in the government is a felony under Indiana Code § 35-44.1-1-3. When the new commissioner, Rudolph Clay, was sworn in, he immediately fired the plaintiff and installed Clay's own son in his place.The plaintiff filed a Section 1983 civil rights lawsuit against Clay and the county and cited case law that interpreted the First Amendment to forbid a public employer to fire an employee on political grounds unless the employee is either a policy-making employee or a confidential one. The plaintiff was neither. Meanwhile, that same person was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison. The plaintiff sought reinstatement and back pay for the illegal dismissal. However, the court denied it not only because of impracticality and possibly outrageousness of employing inmates in the government, but also because of the plaintiff's "parasitism" on county coffers, which caused harm to taxpayers. He could not argue that the First Amendment both guarantees the spoils system for him but forbids it for county executives. Although this meant that the new county commissioner got his way, the Seventh Circuit assured the sinecure for Clay's son would not last forever as "he who lives by patronage shall perish by it".Byron v. Clay, 867 F.2d 1049 (7th Cir. 1989) (Posner, J.)