I was watching news yesterday about a woman who was mad because another woman had borrowed $700 but not repaid, so she poured boiling water over her. Needless to say, the lender has now been charged with assault.
Now, that incident did not happen in the United States, but it got me to wondering how such a thing would be handled under U.S. law. Since civil and criminal court are separate things, does the assaulter still have legit civil claim to the $700, or would her crime wipe out the debt? Of course, the scald victim would be just as able to sue in kind for (much more) monetary damages from the assaulter for having been scalded, so it would more than negate the debt.
This isn’t the case in any jurisdiction I’m aware of and when you think about it how could it be?
Presumably it couldn’t be the case that any crime against the debtor would negate the debt; it would be grossly unjust if my million debt to you was negated because I stole your pencil. So any such system would need to involve putting a cash value on the crime. How does that happen?
Really you’ve answered your own question - if the crime gives the victim a right to compensation or damages that may in practice be sufficient to offset the original debt.
…: because you stole my pencil…
If the crime is related to the debt in certain ways the civil suit may be dismissed because the plaintiff does not have ‘clean hands’.
From Cornell Law School site:
" The clean-hands doctrine is the principle that a party’s own inequitable misconduct precludes recovery based on equitable claims or defenses . The doctrine requires that a party act fairly in the matter for which they seek a remedy."
As your quote indicates, this is a doctrine in courts of equity, not law. (although the two courts have been merged in the United States, there remains a distinction in claims and remedies) It would be a rare debt that was based on equitable principles, and thus the “clean hands” doctrine would rarely apply to the OP’s question.
I’m sure it would happen rarely for matters similar to those described in the OP. People might be most familiar with courts of equity in the form of small claims courts.
I don’t think it would legally negate the debt, but if Party A sued Party B for the debt and Party B sued Party A for medical bills, pain and suffering, and other damages related to the attack, both parties would probably win their lawsuits but Party B, the guy that got attacked, would probably come out ahead.
I saw something similar on a small claims court show recently.
A man - who was black and in an interracial marriage - owed about $2000 to a vendor. In his attempt to collect, the vendor sent text messages with racially tinged threats and made disparaging public social media posts that referenced the man’s race and marriage.
The judge awarded the vendor his $2000, but also awarded the other party, the man who had been threatened, $5000 for the defamation and the pain and suffering caused by the threats. So the net judgement was for $3000 against the vendor.
ETA- I don’t think the doctrine of clean hands applies in the case presented by the OP, that would relate to something fishy regarding the original loan.
You can’t sue to enforce a drug deal or other illegal contract. A classic example is when someone loans another party money for the down payment of a house and signs a gift letter to give to the bank even though they have a side agreement with the borrower to repay the loan, the side agreement can’t be enforced in court because it’s mortgage fraud.
IANAL, but I watch a lot of small claims court TV.
In the legal system proper, no.
For petty things, then sometimes.
I had an acquaintance that owed another acquaintance a couple hundred dollars. The debt wasn’t paid, so the lender vandalized the debtor’s car.
Obviously, the person whose car was vandalized called the police. In the end, it was determined that the damage to the car was a bit less than what was owed, so the cop suggested that they call it even, so they did.
I seriously doubt that would have held up in court, if either party had pushed it, though. The cop was satisfied with the result, probably saved him a bunch of paperwork.