The complainant did not perform any of their agreements. has been in possession of the premises ever since, and neither said. defendants, nor any one claiming under them, has ever been in possession of the subject-matter of the conveyance. * * * In order to constitute fraud in law, a representation must be on affirmance of a fact, and not a mere promise or matter of intention. While a statement of a matter in the future, if affirmed as a fact, may amount to a fraudulent misrepresentation, it must amount to an assertion of a fact, and not an agreement to do something in the future. * * * If a promise is made to do something in the future and at the time it is not intended to perform the promise, that fact does 'not constitute a fraud in the law. * * * If an intention not to perform constituted fraud, every transaction might be avoided where the facts justified an inference that a party did not intend to pay the consideration or keep his agreement. A mere breach of a contract does not amount to a fraud, and neither a knowledge of inability to perform, nor an intention not to do so, would make the transaction fraudulent. The bill in this case states no representation as to any past or existing fact except that the kind of coal used in the plant near Youngstown, Ohio, had become exhausted, necessitating a removal of the plant to a locality where such coal could be found, and that the defendants had a steamer in the Ohio river loaded with iron and machinery for removal, and there is no averment that either of these representations was false. The other averments of the bill amount simply to charges that the defendants to whom the deed was made failed to perform their promises, which constituted the sole consideration for the deed. The averments of the bill are not sufficient to charge fraud in obtaining the deed. * * * * * It is not to be inferred that the representations of the three defendants as to what they would do, and which constituted the sole consideration for the conveyance, gave rise to no right in the complainant or that the right would not be enforced or relief granted by a court of equity. * But the remedy that might be given is not the one sought by this bill. The court correctly decided that the facts alleged were not sufficient to establish the charge of fraud in obtaining the conveyance or to justify declaring the deed void and removing it as a cloud upon complainant's title. The decree is affirmed. GLOBE MUTUAL LIFE INS. ASS'N v. WAGNER. (Supreme Court of Illinois, 1900. 188 Ill. 133, 58 N. E. 970, 52 L. R. A. 649, 80 Am. St. Rep. 169.) Appellee, Dora Wagner, recovered a judgment of $250 in a suit in assumpsit in the superior court of Cook county against appellant, the Globe Mutual Life Insurance Association of Chicago, on a policy of insurance issued to her on the life of her son Richard Wagner. The association appealed to the appellate court, where the judgment of the superior court was affirmed, and now prosecutes this further appeal. WILKIN, J. The chief ground urged by appellant for a reversal of the judgment of the appellate court is the falsity of the answer to one of the questions appearing in the medical examination of the insured. On the back of the application made by appellee, in what purports to be the medical examination of the insured, this question and answer appear: "Q. How many brothers dead? Ans. None." ** * It appears from the evidence that a brother of the insured died in London, England, more than four years prior to the date of the application for insurance in this case, but there is no evidence tending to show that the insured ever knew of his brother's death. Appellant asserts, however, that, whether he knew of it or not, the statement that none of his brothers was dead is a warranty, and, being untrue, avoids the policy. Appellee contends that the statement, though false, is not a warranty, but a mere representation, which, unless material, would not avoid the policy. In the absence of explicit, unequivocal stipulations requiring such an interpretation, it should not be inferred that the insured or the appellee took a life policy with the distinct understanding that it should be void if any statements made in the medical examination should be false, whether the insured was conscious of the falsity thereof or not. * * * Whether or not the deceased knew of the death of his brother at the time of the application for insurance was a question for the jury, and no evidence of such knowledge appears in the record. * * * We are satisfied the court below committed no reversible error, and the judgment of that court will be affirmed. CROMPTON v. BEEDLE. (Supreme Court of Vermont. 1910. 83 Vt. 287, 75 Atl. 331, 30 L. R. A. [N. S.] 748, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 399.) Bill by Cora E. Crompton against Albert H. Beedle and another, praying for a reconveyance of land deeded to defendants. Complainant tendered defendants the purchase price. HASELTON, J. The oratrix in this cause, a resident of Worcester, Mass., sets out in her bill as amended that, at a time named she was the owner in fee simple of a farm in Randolph in this state; that she purchased the farm for the use of a relative, and had herself never been in Randolph, and had never seen the farm and was ignorant of its true value; that there was and is an undeveloped and valuable granite quarry in and under the pasture of the farm, but that at the time named. she had no knowledge of such quarry. She further sets out that at the time in question, which was October 22, 1908, the defendant Beedle, called upon her in Worcester, and stated that he desired to buy the pasture mentioned, and that she told him that she did not know the value of the pasture apart from the farm; that thereupon the defendant Beedle told her that the pasture was poor and of comparatively little value; that it adjoined some land that belonged to him, and that the only way of access to the pasture was over his land, and that it annoyed him and his family to have his land gone over for such access, and that that was the only reason why he desired to purchase the pasture. * The oratrix further alleges that the defendants knew of the existence of the granite quarry, and knew that she was ignorant of its existence, that the representations made as above stated were false, and were known to the defendants to be false, and were fraudulently made for the purpose of inducing her to sell the farm to the defendants at a price much less than its true value, and for the purpose of inducing her to forbear inquiry as to the existence and value of the granite quarry, B. & B.BUS.Law-20 and as to the value of the farm as affected thereby; that the pasture was not, as represented, of little value, $400, but $15,000. * * * * * * In an early Pennsylvania case cited by the defendants it is said that "concealment on the part of the vendee is a novel objection." But the question presented has, in its various aspects, been discussed for many centuries. Cicero puts the case of one who buys for a trifle gold, which the seller, in his ignorance, supposed to be brass, and he moots similar questions regarding sales of personal property and of real estate as well. But we pass over the discussions of the ethical writers and the civilians, discussions which are in some cases luminous and in others obscure. It has long been settled in common-law jurisdictions that, in general, the mere failure of a buyer to disclose something extrinsic or intrinsic to the thing bought, known to him and not known to the seller, is not in legal sense fraud. In Laidlaw v. Organ, 2 Wheat. 178, 4 L. Ed. 214, it appeared that in February, 1815, the defendant got, through private sources, news of our Treaty of Peace with England, of which the plaintiffs were ignorant, and that, without disclosing the news, the defendant bought of the plaintiffs 111 hogsheads of tobacco, the price of which was greatly enhanced by news of the peace. It appeared that the plaintiffs inquired, in the course of the transaction, if there was any news calculated to enhance the value of tobacco, and that no reply was made to their inquiry. In the district. court it was held, as matter of law, that there could be no recovery. Chief Justice Marshall in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court said: "The question in this case is whether the intelligence of extrinsic circumstances which might influence the price of the commodity, and which was exclusively within the knowledge of the vendee, ought to have been communicated by him to the vendor. The court is of opinion that he was not bound to communicate it. It would be difficult to circumscribe the contrary doctrine within proper limits where the means of intelligence are equally accessible to both parties. But at the same time each party must take care not to say or do anything tending to impose upon the other." In accordance with these views the court held that in the circumstances disclosed it was a question of fact whether any imposition was practiced by the vendee upon the vendor, and so the judgment was reversed and the cause remanded. * * * In a case decided a few years later than Laidlaw v. Organ, Lord Eldon, in a carefully considered case, gave expression to the law here applicable. He said: "If an estate is offered for sale, and I treat for it knowing that there is a mine under it, and the other party makes no inquiry, I am not bound to give him any information of it; he acts for himself, and exercises his own sense and knowledge. But a very little is sufficient to affect the application of that principle. If a word, if a single word, be dropped which tends to mislead the vendor, that principle will not be allowed to operate." Turner v. Harvey, Jacob, 169, 178. În Walters v. Morgan, 3 De G. F. & J. 718, Lord Chancellor Campbell expressed his full concurrence in the doctrine of Turner v. Harvey, and said that, not only a single word, but "a nod or a wink or a shake of the head, or a smile from the purchaser, might defeat the application of the principle that mere reticence on the part of a purchaser does not in law amount to fraud." * * * In Mountain v. Day, 91 Minn. 249, 97 N. W. 883, the syllabus, by the court, is this: "An action will lie for fraudulent representations made by the prospective purchaser of land as to its value and condition; the land being at a distance from the place of purchase, and the vendor being ignorant as to its condition. and value, and relying upon the truthfulness of such representations." * * * Unfairness and fraud may be collected from a variety of circumstances, and it is ordinarily enough to establish fraud that a vendee has actively attempted to ensnare, and has in fact ensnared, the vendor into the making of an unconscionable contract. Where concealment of an essential thing is effected by an industrious course of misleading and deceptive talk or conduct, there is fraud against which equity will relieve. The law distinguishes between passive concealment and active concealment. Where one has full information, and represents that he has, if he discloses a part of his information only, and by words or conduct leads the one with whom he contracts to believe that he has made a full disclosure, and does this with intent to deceive and overreach and to prevent investigation, he is guilty of fraud against which equity will relieve, if his words and conduct in consequence of reliance upon them bring about the result which he desires. The jurisdiction of courts of equity to relieve against active and effective fraud is so essential to the administration of justice therein that such courts, often indeed, to use the language of Chief Justice Crew, as reported by Sir William Jones, will "take hold of a twig or twine thread to uphold it." We have in this state several cases to the effect that, even where there is no confidential relation, one party to a sale may, without direct misrepresentation, be guilty of fraud by means of words or acts calculated and intended to produce a false impression, and which do in fact deceive and induce the sale. * * * The result is that the decree sustaining the demurrer and adjudging the bill insufficient is reversed, and the case is remanded. SECTION 4.-DURESS Duress consists in compelling action through fear, as, for example, where A. says to B., "Sign this note, or I will shoot you.' Duress implies coercion, the will of the actor being overcome or directed, not because of mistake or fraud or persuasion, but through. fear of consequences of not acting as directed. Commonly the threats constituting duress are of physical injury to the personthreatened, or of physical injury to some other person, or of injury to or deprivation of the property of the person threatened, or of instituting a criminal prosecution against the person threatened, or some other person. The nature and legal consequences of duress are illustrated in the following cases. WILLIAMSON-HALSELL-FRAZIER CO. v. ACKERMAN et al. Action on three notes and mortgage given by defendant J. J. Ackerman and other defendants to secure the payment of a defalcation of Ackerman's son. Halsell, a representative of the plaintiff company, came to defendant J. J. Ackerman and informed him that his son John had embezzled about $4,000 of the company's money, that he (Halsell) had in his pocket a warrant for John's arrest for embezzlement, and that there was a deputy sheriff waiting in an adjoining room to serve the warrant, and unless the notes and mortgages were signed the warrant would be served, and John would be convicted and sent to the penitentiary. Judgment below for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. * JOHNSTON, C. J. * The action was not one to determine the guilt or innocence of John; nor was the matter of his actual guilt an essential feature of the defense of duress. The point for decision was whether the threats of arrest and prosecution of John put the father in fear, and thus overcame his will, and rendered him incompetent to contract. If there was no free will in the execution of the notes and mortgage, there is no contract, nor any binding obligation. Under the modern theory, duress is to be tested, not by the nature of the acts or threats, but rather by the state of mind of the victim induced by such acts and threats. In Galusha v. Sherman, 105 Wis. 263, 81 N. W. 495, 47 L. R. A. 417, there is a full discussion of the subject and of the development of the law from the ancient doctrine that duress should be tested by the means used to overcome the person threatened to the later and better one of the condition of the mind induced by the threats. It was there said that: "The making of a contract requires the free exercise of the will power of the contracting parties, and the free meeting and blending of their minds. In the absence of that, the essential of a contract is wanting; and, if such absence be produced by the wrongful conduct of one party to the transaction, or conduct for which he is responsible, whereby the other party, for the time being, through fear, is bereft of his free will power, for the purpose of obtaining the contract, and it is thereby obtained, such contract may be avoided on the ground of duress. There is no legal standard of resistance which a party so circumstanced must exercise at his peril to protect himself. The question in each case is: Was the alleged injured person, by being put in fear by the other party to the transaction for the purpose of obtaining an advantage over him, deprived of the free exercise of his will power, and was such advantage thereby obtained? If the proposition be determined in the affirmative, no matter what the nature of the threatened injury to such person, or his property, or the person or liberty of his wife or child, the advantage thereby obtained cannot be retained." Following the same theory, neither the legality of the threatened arrest and prosecution, nor the guilt or innocence of John, was material to the determination of whether there was duress. The conduct of John, whatever it may have been, was no excuse or justification for intimidating and coercing the father to pay John's debt, or to give a mortgage on his home to secure the payment of such debt, or to relieve him from any liability. If it is assumed that John misappropriated the money of the plaintiff, and was therefore indebted to it for a large sum of money, it nevertheless gave its representatives no right to use, or threaten the use of, the criminal law to make the father pay or secure the debt. It is not an appropriate method for enforcing the payment of the debt by the debtor himself, much less to compel the securing of it by one who was in no sense liable for its payment. * * * In Thompson v. Niggley, 53 Kan. 664, 35 Pac. 290, 26 L. R. A. 803, the court repudiated the doctrine that duress could not be pred |