Cases On Legal Liability

n the neck with his fist, so that W. fell to the ground; and while W. was on the ground the dead man drew his knife to have killed W., and W., lying on the ground, drew his own knife, and the dead man was so hasty to have killed W. that he fell on W.'s knife and so killed himself. Knivet, C. J. If W. had killed the dead man in self-defence W.'s chattels would have been forfeited, and W. would have sued the king to have a charter of pardon; but now it is found that the dead man killed himself, in a way, wherefore we will advise whether W. shall be put to sue the king for his charter and forfeit his goods, or not. And then he was adjudged not guilty and his chattels not forfeited.1 1 "An act is the result of an exercise of the will." Gray, J., in Duncan i. Landis, 106 Fed. 839, 848. "Acts are exertions of the will manifested in the external world." Professor Pound, Readings on the History and System of the Common Law, 453. "If a movement is caused by physical compulsion, 'via obsolvla,' as when the hand of a person is forcibly guided in making a signature, there is no act, since will is absent. But the will itself, being amenable to motives, may be coerced by threats, 'metug,' 'nil compulfita,' 'duress per minus.' Here there is indeed an act, but one which produces none or few of the legal consequences which it would have produced had it been the result of free volition." Holland, Jurisprudence, 103. GIBBONS v. PEPPER. King's Bench, 1695...