Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Imposition on the public is not a ground on which the plaintiff can come into court, but it is a very good ground for keeping him out of it. Even if Van Den Bergh & Company had no registered title and no such other rights under Spanish colonial law as they have under act No. 666, § 4, the imposition on the public was still there, and though not a matter of which the defendant could complain, it was a matter to which he could refer when the plaintiff sought to exclude him from doing just what the plaintiff had done himself. ”

“ But the treaty, if applicable, cannot be supposed to have been intended to contravene the principle of § 9, which only codifies common morality and fairness. The section is not retrospective in any sense, for it introduces no new rule. See Manhattan Medicine Co. ”