An impoverished father had prevailed upon his inexperienced children to charge their reversionary interests under their parents’ marriage settlement to pay his mortgage debts. Undue influence was claimed.
Held: The defendants who were not volunteers did not have the requisite notice of the undue influence and were entitled to enforce their security.
Fry J said that a vitiating circumstance would operate: ‘against the person who is able to exercise the influence (in this case it was the father) and in my judgment, it would operate against every volunteer who claimed under him, and also against every volunteer who claimed under [the person who had exercised undue influence], and also against every person who claimed under him with notice of the equity thereby created, or with notice of the circumstances from which the court infers the equity. But, in my judgment, it would operate against no others; it would not operate against a person who is not shown to have taken with such notice of the circumstances under which the deed was executed.’ Though there here was no direct evidence of undue pressure by the father, there were circumstances ‘from which the court will infer pressure and undue influence.’ None of the children were entirely emancipated from their father’s control, and none conversant with business. These circumstances cast the burden of proof upon the father who had made no attempt to discharge that burden, and did not appear. The children’s claim succeeded.
Fry J
(1881) 18 ChD 188, [1881] UKLawRpCh 148
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v O’Brien and Another HL 21-Oct-1993
The wife joined in a charge on the family home to secure her husband’s business borrowings. The husband was found to have misrepresented to her the effect of the deed, and the bank had been aware that she might be reluctant to sign the deed.
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Boulter and Another HL 26-Oct-1999
The question of whether notice of certain facts amounted to constructive notice of other facts is a question of law. Where it was claimed that a party should be exempt from liability under a document which it was claimed was signed because of . .
Cited – Barclays Bank Plc v Boulter and Another HL 26-Oct-1999
The question of whether notice of certain facts amounted to constructive notice of other facts is a question of law. Where it was claimed that a party should be exempt from liability under a document which it was claimed was signed because of . .
Cited – Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge (No 2); Barclays Bank plc v Harris; Midland Bank plc v Wallace, etc HL 11-Oct-2001
Wives had charged the family homes to secure their husband’s business borrowings, and now resisted possession orders, claiming undue influence.
Held: Undue influence is an equitable protection created to undo the effect of excess influence of . .
Cited – Lipkin Gorman (a Firm) v Karpnale Ltd HL 6-Jun-1991
The plaintiff firm of solicitors sought to recover money which had been stolen from them by a partner, and then gambled away with the defendant. He had purchased their gaming chips, and the plaintiff argued that these, being gambling debts, were . .
Cited – Brown v Stephenson ChD 23-Aug-2013
The claimant sought to have set aside transfers and declarations of trust made by her in the defendant’s favour, saying that they had been given under his undue influence taking advantage of her dyslexia, and by bullying.
Held: The claims of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Undue Influence
Updated: 15 January 2022; Ref: scu.179882
