Undue Influence - 1900- 1929

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This page lists 12 cases, and was prepared on 28 October 2012.

Powell -v- Powell [1900] 1 Ch 243
1900 Farwell J	Undue Influence, Legal Professions
	Strong moral pressure was applied by a stepmother to a girl who was only just twenty one. Held: She was regarded as not really capable of dealing irrevocably with her parent or guardian in the matter of a substantial settlement. Where a solicitor is instructed to advise a person who may be subject to the undue influence of another he must bear in mind that it is not sufficient that she understands the nature and effect of the transaction if she is so affected by the influence of the other that she cannot make an independent decision of her own. It is not sufficient to explain the documentation and ensure she understands the nature of the transaction and wishes to carry it out. He must arrange independent advice if necessary.

Turnbull & Co -v- Duval [1902] AC 429
1902 PC Lord Lindley	Contract, Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Citers
	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."

Wright -v- Carter [1903] 1 Ch 27
1903	Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers

Bischoff's Trustee -v- Frank (1903) 89 LT 188
1903 Wright J	Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Citers

Baudains -v- Richardson (1906) AC 169
1906 PC Lord MacNaughten	Undue Influence, Wills and Probate	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The Board considered the quality of influence necessary to establish undue influence: "Influence may be degrading and pernicious and yet not undue influence in the eyes of the law"

Howes -v- Bishop [1909] 2 KB 390, CA
1909	Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The relationship of husband and wife does not bring a case within Class 2(A).

Re Coomber, Coomber -v- Coomber [1911] 1 Ch 174
1911 ChD Neville J, Fletcher Moulton L	Trusts, Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	A father had been assisted in his business by his second son. After the father's death, the mother transferred the business assets to that second son. After her death, the elder son sought the transfer of those assets back into her estate, saying that in the absence of her having taken independent advice, the younger son's position brought an implication of undue influence. Held: The mother's actions were adequately explained by her wish to do what she thought her husband would have wanted. Fletcher Moulton LJ summarised the general rules applicable to cases of persons who are competent to form an opinion of their own: 'All that is necessary is that some independent person, free from any taint of the relationship, or of the consideration of interest which would affect the act, should put clearly before the person what are the nature and the consequences of the act. It is for adult persons of competent mind to decide whether they will do an act, and I do not think that independent and competent advice means independent and competent approval. It simply means that the advice shall be removed entirely from the suspected atmosphere; and that from the clear language of an independent mind, they should know precisely what they are doing.'

Bank of Montreal -v- Stuart [1911] AC 120
1911 PC Lord Macnaghten	Banking, Undue Influence, Legal Professions	Casemap
	The court used the phrase 'immoderate and irrational' to describe the character of a transaction which might of its nature suggest undue influence. A solicitor who is advising a client about a transaction and has reason to suspect that the client is the victim of undue influence is placed under a duty to the client to try and protect her. The relationship of husband and wife did not as a matter of law raise a presumption of undue influence.

Re Coomber; Coomber -v- Coomber [1911] 1 Ch 723
2 Jan 1911 CA Fletcher Moulton LJ	Trusts, Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The Coomber family sold beer in Battersea. Coomber Senior had increasingly relied on his second son. After his father's death, the second son continued to run the business. His mother shortly afterwards assigned both the licence and the premises to him. After the mother's death the older son asked the court to transfer the business and its premises brought back into her estate, saying that, as manager for his mother, the second son was in a fiduciary relationship with her and, as such,was presumed to have used undue influence in dealing with his beneficiary. Held: The fact that the mother was following what she took to have been her late husband's wishes was adequate ground for finding for the second son. Also the mother had received adequate legal advice. It was impossible to leap from the label 'fiduciary relationship' to the conclusion that all the incidents of an express trusteeship applied. All sorts of relations could be called fiduciary relations by reason of elements of confidence, trust and dependence. Fletcher Moulton LJ: 'It is said that the son was the manager of the stores and therefore was in a fiduciary relationship to his mother. This illustrates in a most striking form the danger of trusting to verbal formulae. Fiduciary relations are of many different types; they extend from the relation of myself to an errand boy who is bound to bring me back my change up to the most intimate and confidential relations which can possibly exist between one party and another where the one is wholly in the hands of the other because of his infinite trust in him. All these are cases of fiduciary relations, and the Courts have again and again, in cases where there has been a fiduciary relation, interfered and set aside acts which, between persons in a wholly independent position, would have been perfectly valid. Thereupon in some minds there arises the idea that if there is any fiduciary relation whatever any of these types of interference is warranted by it. They conclude that every kind of fiduciary relation justifies every kind of interference. Of course that is absurd. The nature of the fiduciary relation must be such that it justifies the interference. ... In my opinion there was absolutely nothing in the fiduciary relations of the mother and the son with regard to this house which in any way affected this transaction.' and 'All that is necessary is that some independent person, free from any taint of the relationship, or of the consideration of interest which would affect the act, should put clearly before the person what are the nature and the consequences of the act. It is for adult persons of competent mind to decide whether they will do an act, and I do not think that independent and competent advice means independent and competent approval. It simply means that the advice shall be removed entirely from the suspected atmosphere; and that from the clear language of an independent mind, they should know precisely what they are doing.'

Poosathurai -v- Kannappa Chettiar [1919] LR 47 1A
1919 PC	Undue Influence	Casemap 1 Citers

Craig -v- Lamoureux [1920] AC 349
1920 HL Viscount Haldane	Undue Influence, Wills and Probate	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The House considerd the facts to be established before a will could be set aside as having been obtained by undue influence: "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."

Inche Noriah -v- Shaik Allie Bin Omar [1929] AC 127
1929 PC Lord Hailsham LC	Undue Influence, Legal Professions	Casemap 1 Citers
	Undue influence was alleged against a nephew over his elderly aunt. One solicitor had drafted the deed of gift, and another had witnessed it. The solicitor had established that she understood it and entered into it freely, but had not asked enough to establish that it was almost her entire estate, and had not advised her that a better way to achieve the result would be by will. Held: The gift failed for undue influence. Usually a presumption of undue influence may be rebutted by showing that the transaction was entered into "after the nature and effect of the transaction had been fully explained to the donor by some independent qualified person." However (Lord Hailsham LC): "their Lordships are not prepared to accept the view that independent legal advice is the only way in which the presumption can be rebutted." and "It is necessary for the donee to prove that the gift was a result of the free exercise of independent will. The most obvious way to prove this is by establishing that the gift was made after the nature and effect of the transaction had been fully explained to the donor by some independent and qualified person so completely to satisfy the court that the donor was acting independently of any influence from the donee and with the full appreciation of what he was doing; and in cases where there can there are no other circumstances this may be the only means by which the donee can rebut the presumption."