1. A deed procured through fear of loss of life, produced by
threats of the grantee, may be avoided for duress.
2. A judgment being but a general lien and the creditor under it
obtaining no encumbrance but on such estate as his debtor really
had, the equity of such creditor gives way before the superior
right of an owner in the land who had conveyed it to the debtor
only by duress and who never parted with possession.
3.
<|7 Wall. 205|>Brown v. Pierce, 7 Wall. 205,
identical with this case in principle and almost identical with it
also in fact and circumstance, affirmed.
In the spring of 1857, there existed, near Omaha, in the then
Territory of Nebraska, an organization known as the Omaha Claim
Club. The object and purpose of the club was to nullify the land
laws of the United States, to the end that the members of the club,
who were engaged in land speculations, might hold and control the
public lands in the vicinity of Omaha to the exclusion of actual
settlers. The club numbered from 100 to 200 men. It made laws and
promulgated decrees to suit its purposes, and enforced their
observance with revolvers, guns, bayonets, ropes, and other
appliances. It was regularly officered. The sheriff of the county,
secretary of the territory, mayor of the city, and register and
receiver of the land office, all held high positions in the club.
It had stated meetings, and when any supposed exigency should
arrive, the band would assemble at an hour's notice and be ready
for business. It drove actual settlers from their claims, burned
down their cabins, and marched
Page 79 U. S. 151
the settlers, surrounded by armed men, to the land office of the
United States and compelled them to withdraw their applications for
land. If the subject was obstinate, he was taken to the Missouri
River, and, with a rope around his neck, thrown in and pulled out,
and thrown in again, and the operation repeated as often as might
be necessary in order "to bring the subject to his senses, so he
would agree to abide the law of the land." The character and
objects of the club, while it lasted, were notorious.
In this state of things Baker, in the spring of 1857, settled
upon and improved a quarter of a section of land near Omaha;
erected a house and continued to occupy it until August 10, 1857,
when he entered the land under the provisions of the preemption
laws of the United States. Having acquired title and being thus in
possession, one Pierce, at that time a member of this club and a
man of influence in it, though then and subsequently a citizen of
New York, claimed the land by virtue of its laws and regulations,
and taking several members of the club with him, went to Baker's
house and demanded a deed of the land. Baker, on the 10th of
August, 1857, executed to him such a deed; Pierce, however,
suffering Baker to remain in possession either of this or of an
adjoining tract (which he had got in the same way that he did
this), under some sort of lease. Pierce being thus invested with a
paper title, Morton, a respectable banker of New York, where, as
already said, Pierce resided, lent him money, and the debt not
being paid, sued him and got judgment.
In this state of things, Baker, in September, 1860, still
residing in Nebraska, filed a bill in the territorial court of that
territory against Pierce as grantee, and Morton as claiming an
interest, to set aside the deed as obtained by duress and without
consideration. It set forth the respective residences of himself in
Nebraska and of Pierce and Morton in New York, the demand for the
deed by Pierce and execution of it by Baker to him. It alleged that
when Pierce and his company demanded the deed, they threatened to
take Baker's life by hanging or drowning him if he did
Page 79 U. S. 152
not comply with the demand; that the club had posted handbills
calling the members together to take action against Baker; and that
he made the deed knowing all this, and
in actual fear of his
life or of great bodily harm; that he received no
consideration whatever for the deed.
Pierce did not appear to the bill, which was taken
pro
confesso against him, and decree rendered accordingly. Morton
answered alleging that he had no knowledge as to the circumstances
under which the deed had been procured and that he could not answer
to the charge, on belief or otherwise; but upon information he
denied the same and alleged that the deed was freely and
voluntarily made and that Pierce was the true and lawful owner of
the premises, free from all claim.
The cause was heard on pleading and proofs in the District Court
for Nebraska Territory by the then Chief Justice, who rendered a
decree dismissing the bill. It was then carried by appeal to the
supreme court of the territory, where it was pending when Nebraska
was admitted into the Union. Thereupon, owing to the citizenship of
the parties -- the complainant in the State of Nebraska and the
defendants in New York -- and according to the usual rule by which
cases that, by reason of the character of the parties, belong most
naturally to the federal courts, are transferred into those courts,
and those which cannot be taken into
them are transferred
to the state courts, this case was removed into the circuit court
of the United States. Here it was heard again and a decree given
dismissing the bill. The complainant appealed to this Court.
The reader who has read and remembers the case of
Brown v.
Pierce, which came before this Court two terms ago and is
reported in <|7 Wall. 205|>7th Wall. 205, will have seen, of
course, that the case is identical in principle and scarcely at all
variant in fact from that one.
The facts alleged by the bill being considered by the Court,
here as there, fully proved by the evidence, the only questions
which remained were:
1. Whether a deed executed without any consideration
Page 79 U. S. 153
and only because the party making it is put in fear of his life
or of great bodily harm may be avoided.
2. Whether the case made was one for relief as against Morton,
whose good faith in lending his money was not to be questioned.
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
Territorial courts are created by an act of Congress, and they
usually possess jurisdiction of controversies of a civil nature
without regard to the inquiry whether the controversies, if they
had arisen in a state, would have been cognizable in the tribunals
of the state or in the federal courts. [
Footnote 1]
By the organic act creating the Territory of Nebraska, the
judicial power of the territory was vested in a supreme court and
certain district courts, and the provision was that the
jurisdiction of those courts should be as prescribed and limited by
law. [
Footnote 2]
Whenever a territory is admitted into the Union as a state the
cases pending in the territorial courts of a federal character or
jurisdiction are transferred to the proper federal court, but all
such as are not cognizable in the federal courts are transferred to
the tribunals of the new state. Pending cases, where the federal
and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction, may be transferred
either to the state or federal courts by either party possessing
that option under the existing laws.
On the seventh of September, 1860, the appellant filed his bill
of complaint in one of the district courts of the territory against
Roswell G. Pierce and the appellee, in which he alleged that he,
the appellant, under the laws of the United States, settled,
improved, and entered as a preemptor the southwest quarter of
section eight, township fifteen north,
Page 79 U. S. 154
range thirteen east, in the County of Douglas; that the
first-named respondent claimed to own the tract so settled,
improved, and entered as a preemption right by the complainant;
that the said respondent made claim to the same not by virtue of
any law of the United States, but by virtue of the rules and
regulations of what was known at the time as the Omaha Claim Club,
an organization composed of one or two hundred men, the object of
which was to protect every claimant, whether resident or
nonresident, in holding three hundred and twenty acres of land as a
claim upon the public lands of the United States; that a few days
before he, the complainant, entered the land, the said Pierce and
his agent and a few other persons, members of the said club, came
to the house of the complainant, and that the said Pierce, as the
leader of the party, assured the complainant that unless he would
agree to deed the tract, in case he preempted the same, to the said
Pierce, that he, the said Pierce, with the assistance of the said
claim club, would take his life by hanging or drowning him, or in
such other manner as the agents of the club might think fit and
proper to employ; that on the tenth of August, 1857, he entered the
tract under the preemption laws of the United States, when the said
Pierce, his agents, and certain members of that club again came to
him and repeated the threats before used, and assured him that
unless he immediately conveyed the tract to the said Pierce, they
would carry their threats into execution, and that he, by means of
those threats and through fear that the threats would be carried
into effect if he refused to convey the land, on the same day
conveyed the tract to the said Pierce by deed in the usual form,
which was duly acknowledged.
Based upon these allegations, the complainant charges that the
conveyance made by him was procured by threats and through fear of
death and without consideration. Morton, the appellee, was also
made a party to the bill of complaint, because he was a judgment
creditor of the other respondent, and claimed an interest in the
land by virtue, as he alleged, of a lien created by his judgment.
Wherefore the complainant
Page 79 U. S. 155
prayed that the conveyance of the tract be made to the said
Pierce may be decreed to be inoperative and void and that the said
Pierce may be decreed to reconvey the premises to the
complainant.
Service was made by publication, as the respondents were
nonresidents, and the respondents failing to appear and plead,
answer, or demur to the bill of complainant, they were duly
defaulted, and a decree was entered that the bill of complaint be
taken as confessed.
Testimony was taken and the cause was submitted to the court and
the court found that the conveyance was obtained by the said Pierce
from the complainant through threats of personal violence made by
the said Pierce and his agents, and without consideration, and a
decree was entered ordering that the conveyance should be cancelled
and requiring the respondent to reconvey the premises to the
complainant as prayed in the bill of complaint.
Pursuant to a motion, however, subsequently filed by the
appellee, it was ordered by the court that the decree as to him
should be vacated, and that he have leave to appear and make
defense. He accordingly filed an answer in which he admitted that
the complainant entered the land as alleged in the bill of
complaint and that he, the complainant, had been in the possession
of the same from that time to the present, but alleged that the
complainant occupied the same as tenant of the other respondent.
Responsive to the charge made that the deed was procured from the
complainant by threats, the appellee alleged that he had no
knowledge upon the subject, that he could not answer to the charge
as to his belief or otherwise, but upon information he denied the
same and alleged the fact to be that the deed was the free and
voluntary act of the complainant, and that the other respondent was
the true and lawful owner in fee of the premises, divested of till
the claims set forth in the bill of complaint; that he, the
appellee, loaned to the other respondent the sum of five thousand
dollars, and that the borrower failing to make payment as
stipulated, he brought suit against him and recovered judgment for
the amount, of which two thousand
Page 79 U. S. 156
five hundred dollars remained due and unpaid, and that his
judgment was a lien on the land described in the pleadings.
Wherefore he insisted that his judgment ought in equity to be held
a better claim on the land than the claim made by the
complainant.
Defects exist in the record arising from the loss of some
portion of the minutes and files of the clerk, but it is conceded
that the usual replication was filed, and the record shows that,
proofs having been taken by both parties, the cause was heard and
the district court of the territory entered a decree dismissing the
bill of complaint and awarded costs to the respondent. From which
decree the complainant appealed to the supreme court of the
territory.
Pending the appeal in the supreme court of the territory, to-wit
on the ninth of February, 1867, Nebraska was admitted into the
Union upon an equal footing with the original states. [
Footnote 3]
Undetermined as the appeal was at that date, and it appearing in
due form that the parties were citizens of different states, the
cause was transferred to the Circuit Court of the United States for
the District of Nebraska, and the parties having been again heard
the circuit court, determined that the deed made by the complainant
to the other respondent was not made while he, the complainant, was
in duress, and that the appellee, by reason of his judgment, has a
better equity in the premises than the complainant, and entered a
decree dismissing the bill of complaint. Whereupon the complainant
appealed to this Court, and now insists that the decree of the
circuit court ought to be reversed.
Much examination of the evidence or of the law applicable in the
decision of the case is unnecessary, as the facts are substantially
the same as in a case between the same parties which was recently
heard and determined by the Court after mature deliberation.
[
Footnote 4]
By the bill of complaint, a complete title is set up by the
Page 79 U. S. 157
complainant to the land under the preemption laws of the United
States, and the answer admits that he held such a title at the date
of the deed he made to the other respondent. Argument upon that
topic therefore is unnecessary, and the complainant charges that he
was induced to execute the deed by threats and from fear of death
or great bodily harm, and the respondent concedes that he is not
able to deny that allegation from any personal knowledge upon the
subject, and he even goes farther and says that he cannot answer
concerning the same, because he has no information or belief upon
the subject. Such an answer does not make it necessary for the
complainant to introduce more than one witness to overcome the
defense, but the Court is not inclined to place the decision upon
any technical ground, as the proof's in the case show to the entire
satisfaction of the Court that all the matters alleged in the bill
of complaint are true, and that the same are fully established,
even if the allegations of the answer be regarded as denials made
by a respondent in respect to matters within his own knowledge.
Some conflict undoubtedly exists in the proofs, but the weight of
the evidence is so decidedly with the complainant that the Court
feels no hesitation in saying that the allegations of the bill of
complaint are fully proved.
Complete incipient title was acquired by the complainant under
the preemption laws of the United States, and on the same day the
defaulted respondent, through threats to take his life if he
refused, compelled him to convey the same to that party, and the
settled law of this Court is that such acts amount to legal duress
and that a deed or other written obligation or contract procured by
such means is inoperative and void, and that rule is applied in all
jurisdictions where the principles of the common law prevail.
[
Footnote 5]
Actual violence is not necessary to constitute duress even at
common law, as understood in the parent country, because consent is
the very essence of a contract, and if there be compulsion, there
is no consent, and it is well settled law
Page 79 U. S. 158
that moral compulsion, such as that produced by threats to take
life or to inflict great bodily harm, as well as that produced by
imprisonment, is sufficient to destroy free agency, without which
there can be no contract, as in that state of the case, there is no
consent. [
Footnote 6]
Where a party enters into a contract for fear of loss of life,
or for fear of loss of limb, or fear of mayhem, or for fear of
imprisonment, the contract is as clearly void as when it was
procured by duress of imprisonment, which is where there is an
arrest for an improper purpose without just cause, or where there
is an arrest for a just cause but without lawful authority, or for
a just cause but for an unlawful purpose, and the rule is that in
either of those events, the party arrested, if he was thereby
induced to enter into a contract, may avoid it as one procured by
duress.
2. Judgments were not liens at common law, but Congress, in
adopting the modes of process prevailing in the states at the time
the judicial system of the United States was organized, made
judgments recovered in the federal courts liens in all cases where
they were so by the laws of the states, and a later act of Congress
has provided that judgments shall cease to have that operation in
the same manner and at the same periods in the respective federal
districts as like processes do when issued front the state courts.
[
Footnote 7]
Such a lien confers a right to levy on the land to the exclusion
of other adverse interests acquired subsequently to the judgment,
but the lien constitutes no property or right in the land itself,
as it is merely a general lien securing a preference over
subsequently acquired interests in the property. [
Footnote 8]
For these reasons, we are of opinion that the circuit court
erred in entering a decree for the appellee.
Decree reversed with costs, and the cause remanded with
directions to enter a decree for the appellant in conformity with
the opinion of this Court.
[
Footnote 1]
1 Stat. at Large 77; 9
id. 209;
<|9 How.
235|>Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235.
[
Footnote 2]
10 Stat. at Large 280.
[
Footnote 3]
14 Stat. at Large 392.
[
Footnote 4]
<|7 Wall. 214|>Brown v. Pierce, 7 Wall. 214.
[
Footnote 5]
<|7 Wall. 214|>Brown v. Pierce, 7 Wall. 214.
[
Footnote 6]
Chitty on Contracts 192; 2 Greenleaf on Evidence 283; 2
Institutes 482; 2 Rolle's Abridgement 124;
Richardson v.
Duncan, 3 N.H. 508;
Watkins v. Baird, 6 Mass.
511.
[
Footnote 7]
<|8 How. 111|>Williams v. Benedict, 8 How. 111;
<|6 Wall. 166|>Riggs v. Johnson Co., 6 Wall.
166.
[
Footnote 8]
<|1 Pet. 443|>Conard v. Atlantic Ins. Co., 1 Pet.
443;
<|7 How. 767|>Massingill v. Downs, 7 How. 767;
Buchan v. Sumner, 2 Barbour's Ch. 165;
Ells v.
Tousley, 1 Paige 280;
White v. Carpenter, 2
id. 217.
