Studies in Equity: The Fusion of Unclean Hands in America

This thesis analyzes the scope of judicial discretion to recognize the equitable doctrine of unclean hands as a bar to actions seeking damages in America. It provides a historical, doctrinal, and theoretical account of the integration. It analyzes conflicting cases in the federal courts and the fifty states. It also places the issue of integration within the broader debate over law-equity fusion addressed in early American literature and emerging scholarship. By studying discretionary limits on legal remedies, this thesis adds an American perspective to the current and contentious conversation about fusion in other countries of the common law.