Township of Pittsfield v. Malcolm

( concurring in affirmance). This being an equity case, and the equities being all one way, I would affirm on ground that the plaintiff town*149ship stands at equity’s fount in no better position than would a similarly situated private suitor.*

Having issued the permit and having encouraged defendants to proceed as they did, the township, even though free technically from estoppel, is not entitled to abatement — that is, destruction — -by equity’s process of defendants’ expensively constructed and manifestly valuable business. By the quoted rule there is a limit, to the sometimes legally superior…