DECLARED VOID

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 93, 21 April 1931, Page 13

DECLARED VOID

CONTRACT FDR SALE

.Judgment "was given'for the defendant by his.Honour Mr. Justice M'aeGrcgor in the civil action between Emily Muriel AVeight, .plaintiff, and John Munro Murphy, defendant. This was; « vendor's action for sp'oc-inc"perform-ance of a contract, for the sale of .'land. After legal argument, discussing one aspect of the ease his Honour said: — "It is an old maxim of equity that 'He who comes into equity must come, with clean hands.' In this case the plaintiff comes into Court for a relief purely equitable. It is apparent from the evidence that she lias been guilty of what, amounts to fraud in connection with a material part of the very transaction which, she- now seeks to enforce. In' my opinion accordingly her own ylsconduct in the matter has disentitled her to relief at the hands of the Court. . . . In this ease the making of a false declaration was in. itself a 'depravity' both in a legal and in a moral sense: it clearly had an immediate and necessary relation to the plaintiff's claim for specific performance. On this further ground also, accordingly, tho Court should, I think, refuse to lend its aid to enforce tho contract, which is both illegal and void. . . . There still remains for consideration the counter■claim by the defendant to recover the deposit of £50 paid by him. to the plaintiff on the execution of tlic contract. At the hearing counsel for plaintiff (.and I think rightly) admitted that if tho claim failed the counter-claim must succeed. Defendant therefore will have judgment on the counterclaim for £50, but must, of course, forthwith givo up possession of the property to the plaintiff, as the sale and purchase agreement is null and void for the reasons already stated. Giving judgment for tho defendant on the claim and also on the counterclaim, his Honour said: "I do not think it just to allow the defendant his costs.' He failed to establish any of the defences originally sot up by him, but in the end he has succeeded on a ground not raised by his statement of defence, and which certainly should have been pleaded. Ho has derived considerable benefit from the contract, which he eventually refused to complete on untenable grounds, and his evidence at the trial was far from convineiug in more than one respect. Eor , those reasons I do not think he should recover any costs ,o£ these proceedings."