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Undue Influence - From: 1900 To: 1929

This page lists 14 cases, and was prepared on 21 May 2019.


 
 Powell v Powell; 1900 - [1900] 1 Ch 243
 
Turnbull and Co v Duval [1902] AC 429
1902
PC
Lord Lindley
Contract, Undue Influence
Mr Duval owed three separate sums to a firm Turnbull & Co including £1,000 owed to the Jamaican branch for beer. Turnbulls' manager and agent in Jamaica was a Mr Campbell. Mr Campbell was also an executor and trustee of a will under which Mrs Duval had a beneficial interest. Mr Campbell threatened to stop supplying beer to Mr Duval unless security was given for the debts owed and, with Mr Campbell's knowledge, a document was prepared under which Mrs Duval charged her beneficial interest under the will to secure the payment of all debts owed by Mr Duval to Turnbull i.e. not only the money owed for beer but all the debts. Mr Duval put pressure on Mrs Duval to sign the document. She was under the impression that the document was to secure the beer debt only. Held: A transaction may be set aside for misrepresentation or undue influence whether it was procured by the misrepresentation or undue influence of the party seeking to uphold the transaction or that of a third party.
Lord Lindley: "In the face of such evidence, their Lordships are of opinion that it is quite impossible to uphold the security given by Mrs. Duval. It is open to the double objection of having been obtained by a trustee from his cestui que trust by pressure through her husband and without independent advice, and of having been obtained by a husband from his wife by pressure and concealment of material facts. Whether the security could be upheld if the only ground for impeaching it was that Mrs. Duval had no independent advice has not really to be determined. Their Lordships are not prepared to say it could not. But there is an additional and even stronger ground for impeaching it. It is, in their Lordships' opinion, quite clear that Mrs. Duval was pressed by her husband to sign, and did sign, the document, which was very different from what she supposed it to be, and a document of the true nature of which she had no conception. It is impossible to hold that Campbell or Turnbull & Co. are unaffected by such pressure and ignorance. They left everything to Duval, and must abide the consequences."
1 Citers



 
 Wright v Carter; CA 1903 - [1903] 1 Ch 27
 
Bischoff's Trustee v Frank (1903) 89 LT 188
1903

Wright J
Undue Influence

1 Citers



 
 Baudains v Richardson; PC 1906 - [1906] AC 169
 
Howes v Bishop [1909] 2 KB 390, CA
1909


Undue Influence
The relationship of husband and wife does not bring a case within Class 2(A).
1 Citers



 
 Re Coomber, Coomber v Coomber; ChD 1911 - [1911] 1 Ch 174

 
 Bank of Montreal v Stuart; PC 1911 - [1911] AC 120

 
 Re Coomber; Coomber v Coomber; CA 2-Jan-1911 - [1911] 1 Ch 723
 
Poosathurai v Kannappa Chettiar [1919] LR 47 1A
1919
PC

Undue Influence

1 Citers


 
Poosathurai v Kannappa Chettiar and Others [1919] UKPC 110; [1919] LR 47
18 Nov 1919
PC

Commonwealth, Undue Influence
(Madras)
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Craig v Lamoureux [1920] AC 349
1920
HL
Viscount Haldane
Undue Influence, Wills and Probate
The House considered the facts to be established before a will could be set aside as having been obtained by undue influence. Viscount Haldane said: "As was said in the House of Lords when Boyce v Rossborough (1856) 6 HLC 2, 49, was decided, in order to set aside the will of a person of sound mind, it is not sufficient to show that the circumstances attending its execution are consistent with hypothesis of its having been obtained by undue influence. It must be shown that they are inconsistent with a contrary hypothesis. Undue influence, in order to render a will void, must be an inference which can justifiably be described by a person looking at the matter judicially to have caused the execution of a paper pretending to express a testator's mind, but which really does not express his mind, but something else which he did not really mean . . It is also important in this connection to bear in mind that which was laid down by Sir James Hannen in Wingrove v Wingrove (1885) 11 PD 81 and quoted with approval by Lord MacNaughten in delivering the judgment of this Board in Baudains v Richardson (1906) AC 169, and it is not sufficient to establish that a person has the power unduly to overbear the will of the testator. It must be shown that in the particular case the power was exercised, and that it was by means of the exercise of that power that the will was obtained."
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Bank of Victoria Ltd v Mueller; 1925 - [1925] VLR 642

 
 Inche Noriah v Shaik Allie Bin Omar; PC 1929 - [1929] AC 127
 
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