unclean hands

Related to unclean hands: Equitable estoppel

unclean hands

n. a legal doctrine which is a defense to a complaint, which states that a party who is asking for a judgment cannot have the help of the court if he/she has done anything unethical in relation to the subject of the lawsuit. Thus, if a defendant can show the plaintiff had "unclean hands," the plaintiff's complaint will be dismissed or the plaintiff will be denied judgment. Unclean hands is a common "affirmative defense" pleaded by defendants, which must be proved by the defendant. Example: Hank Hardnose sues Grace Goodenough for breach of contract for failure to pay the full amount for construction of an addition to her house which she admits. The court denies any relief to Hardnose when Goodenough proves that Hardnose had shown her faked estimates from subcontractors to justify his original bid to Goodenough. (See: affirmative defense)

unclean hands

noun a blemished record, a record of proven fault, equitable defense, improper history, perronal deficiencies, personal problems, problems in the past, tainted past

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The NCUA countered Ashmore's unclean hands claim as legally deficient.

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Unclean hands operates as a defense when a plaintiff has committed some moral or legal wrongdoing in connections with the lawsuit.

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The dissent provides an instance that compares the in pari delicto defense to the unclean hands defense.

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While attempting to defend their actions, the retailers have raised an interesting and little used defense in trademark infringement litigation: the unclean hands defense.

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This means that the disease can be passed through sewers, polluted drinking water, and unclean hands.

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9% of the vendors with primary and secondary level of education respectively knew that unclean hands and dishes can transmit diseases while serving roadside foods.

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Real Estate Depot argued that equitable subrogation was unavailable because Tribeca Lending had unclean hands since it loaned despite the recorded affidavit of forgery.

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amorphous equitable doctrine of unclean hands, (96) which was

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Good hand hygiene is regarded as the single most cost-effective way of tackling infections spread by unclean hands.

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According to Unicef more than three million children die every year due to diarrhoea and pneumonia, spread by unclean hands.

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Unclean hands are a major source of hospital infections around the globe.

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Fusion marketing director Greg Black notes that as more people recognize the risk of unclean hands, the idea of killing 99.