90 Mo. App. 612 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1901
We shall adopt the finding of the circuit court that the evidence showed the contracts between Bell and .Mulholland, when stripped of their disguises, to be loans of money secured by assignments of Bell’s monthly earnings. The real nature of the transactions was screened behind an unusually complicated mass of affidavits, contracts of agency and assignments, adapted equally to purchases in good faith of wages to be earned, and to advancements of money secured on such wages. The seeming earmark of a loan appears in the .affidavit, where it speaks of Bell having given Mulholland an assignment in blank of his salary, with full authority to-fill out and present the same to his employer, or any succeeding employer, for collection, if Bell should at any time while indebted to said John Mulholland, fail to comply with his contract. Still, that might not be conclusive in every case. It must be weighed in connection with all the circumstances and the positive testimony of the witnesses. Likely, most of Mulholland’s business was legitimate. An assignment of prospective wages to be earned under an existing employment, of either certain or uncertain duration, if made in good faith for a valuable consideration, is upheld, whether intended as-
The point is made that respondent ought to be denied equitable relief bécause he participated in the illegal contracts — has unclean hands. Courts of equity are not so fastidious as to stand by while statutes of the kind in question are ignored, on the assumption that a participant is not saintly enough to enter their precincts. A chancellor should be “a creature not too bright or good, for human nature’s daily food.” The doctrine of “clean hands” goes far, but not that far. A debtor’s hands are clean enough to appeal to an equity court for relief against a usury-exacting creditor, when he has fully paid his lawful indebtedness. The law imputes all the guilt to the lender and excuses the borrower from blame as particeps criminis, on the theory that the latter was overreached or coerced by want — a legal fiction obviously, the 'true reason of the rule being that, to effectively enforce the law, courts must heed the prayers of debtors; as they must likewise let in parol proof to vary written instruments of this class by showing a contract valid on its face, to be a security for a usurious loan. Ferguson v. Stepbern, 3 Gilm. (Ill.) 547; Pope v. Marshall, 78 Ga. 635. Otherwise, in the language of an eminent jurist, used in discussing this subject: “A statute made to- prevent fraud and oppression would be made the instrument of fraud.” 1 Story’s Eq. Fur. (13 Ed.), sec. 301; Chitty on Contracts (12 Ed.), 674. Equity courts grant injunctive or other equitable relief in such cases,
One of the ancient instances of equitable cognizance was relieving a debtor against the penalty of a bond to pay double the sum borrowed, in case of default of payment when due, by compelling the lender to take his principal and legal interest.
The judgment is affirmed.