Knight v. Brown

Decided July 27, 1904

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1904-07-27

Replevin by Agnes Knight against Willard Brown. There was judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings ■error. This is an action of replevin for a horse. The declaration is in the usual form; plea, the general issue. Plaintiff is a widow, living upon and carrying on her farm.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Duress exists when one, by the unlawful act of another, is induced to make a contract or perform some act under the circumstances which deprive him of the exercise of free will.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Sambo's Restaurants, Inc. v. City of Ann Arbor

Relies on Hackley v. Headley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1904-07-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently November 1981

1 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Grant, J.

¶1(after stating the facts). We think plaintiff did not bring herself within the principle of duress as enunciated by the authorities. In Hockley v. Headley, 45 Mich. 569 (8 N. W. 511), Justice Cooley said:

“ Duress exists when one, by the unlawful act of another, is induced to make a contract or perform some act under circumstances which deprive him of the exercise of free will.”

¶2According to her own statement, she held out for four *399hours, refusing to sign the papers. .Three parties were present who had no interest in the transaction. There were no threats. She was simply told that the defendant and his brother insisted that a valid trade had been made, and what the consequences were. She denied it. We do not find in her own version of the transaction any evidence that she was deprived of the exercise, of her free will.

¶3Judgment reversed, and new trial ordered.

The other Justices concurred.