Sec 159

Equity will not permit a position of authority or influence to be used to extort unfair advantages. When-ever there is ascendancy on the one side, and mental inferiority and subjection on the other, promises in which this ascendancy is used to extort unfair advantages will beheld invalid. Dominion, whatever it mav be, exercised so as to wring unrighteous con-cessions from the person controlled to the person controlling will be a ground for equitable relief.3 "The acts and contracts Otherwise when position of superiority is used to extort unfair advantage.

Badgett, 27 Ark. 166 ; Biglow v. Leabo, 8 Oregon, 147. As to limitation in cases of fraud, see infra, sec 232 et seq.

1 See supra, sec 103 ; Gratz v. Cohen, 11 How. U. S. 19 ; Howe v. Howe, 99 Mass. 88 ; Hallenbeck v. Dewitt, 2 Johns. 404; Mason v. Williams, 3 Munf. 126 ; Russell v. Russell, 4 Dana, 40 ; Smith v. Beatty, 2 Ired. Eq. 456; Lindsey v. Lindsey, 50 111. 79 ; Darnell v. Rowland, 30 Ind. 342; Galpin v. Wilson, 40 Iowa, 90.

2 Supra, sec 103 ; infra, sec 232 et seq.

3 Storey's Eq. Jur. 12th ed. sec 238; Bispham's Eq. sec 231 ; Nottidge v. Prince, 2 Giff. 246; Boyse v. Ross-borough, 6 H. L. C. 2; Tate v. Williamson, L. R. 2 Ch. 61; Harding v. Harding, 11 Wheat. 103 ; Selden v. Myers, 20 How. 506 ; Allore v. Jewell, 94 IT. S. 511 ; Whelan v. Whelan, 3 Cow. 537 ; Dunn v. Chambers, 4 Barb. 376; Hutchinson v. Tindall, 2 Green Ch. 357 ; Haydock v. Haydock. 33 N. J. Eq. 494; 34 N. J. Eq. 570 ; Hunt v. Moore, 2 Barr, 105 ; Davidson v. Little,.

22 Penn. St. 245 ; Brady's Appeal, 66 Pemi. St. 277; Highberger v. Stiffler, 21 Md. 338; Wiest v. Garman, 4 Houst. 119 ; Samuel v. Marshall, 3 Leigh, 567 ; Tracey v. Sacket, 1 Oh. St. 54; Wartemberg v. Spiegel, 31 Mich. 400 ; Norris v. Taylor, 49 111. 17 ; Talbott v. Hooser, 12 Bush, 408 ; Rippy v. Grant, 4 Ired. Eq. 443 ; Buffalow v. Buffalow, 2 Dev. & Bat. 241 ; Powell v. Cobb, 3 Jones Eq. 456 ; Rumph v. Abercrombie, 12 Ala. 64; Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483 ; Poston v. Balch, 69 Mo. 115. That a victim of fraud is not barred by complicity, see infra, sec 353. That the inference of undue influence is strengthened by proof of mental inferiority of the promisor, see supra, sec 104.-Mr. Pollock, 3d ed. 569, following Dew v. Parsons, 2 B. & Ald. 562, says, that in such cases "the question to be decided" "is whether the party was a free and voluntary agent." This, however, is a mistake. A person under influence of one kind is as much, in the eye of the law, "a free and of persons who are of weak understanding," to adopt the rule as given by Judge Story,1 "and who are thereby liable to imposition, will be held void in courts of equity, if the nature of the act or contract justify the conclusion, that the party has not exercised a deliberate judgment, but that he has been imposed upon, circumvented, or overcome, by cunning, or artifice, or undue influence." And this is eminently the case when such persons are fraudulently influenced by persons of superior intellect.2 voluntary agent," as is a person under influence of another kind. Unless his capacity of choice is destroyed by insanity, or unless he is by physical force constrained to do or not to do a particular act, he is free, as Savigny shows in a passage already quoted, either to succumb to or to resist the influences brought to bear on him.- See supra, sec 144 et seq.

1 Eq. Jur. 12th ed. sec 238.

2 Infra, sec 245 ; 1 Sug. V. & P. 8th Am. ed. 275; Whelan v. Whelan, 3 Cow. 535 ; Bunch v. Hurst, 3 Des. 292. That age itself does not afford a presumption of undue influence, seel Wh. & St. Med. Jur. sec 90 ; Cowee v. Cornell, 75 N. Y. 91 ; Shaw v. Ball, 55 Iowa, 55. In Cherbonnier v. Evitts, Md. Ct. of App. 1881, we have the following from Ritchie, J.: "The law is jealous to defeat a fraudulent use of the means afforded by intimacy of association. And it is not inconsistent with the exercise of undue influence or artifice that the instrument assailed was executed voluntarily and with a knowledge of its contents. The following cases are illustrative in this connection : In the case of Huguenin v. Bose-ley, 14 Ves. Jr. 275, before Lord Chan-eellor Eldon, in which the deed was impeached on the ground of undue influence and the confidential relation existing between the grantor and grantee, Sir Samuel Romilly argued that ' the rule is not confined to attorneys or persons entitled to reward.' Proof v. Hines, For. 111, was the case of a tradesman who officiously interfered ; the relief stands upon a general principle applying to all the variety of relations in which dominion may be exercised by one person over another. He cited Hatch v. Hatch, 9 Ves. Jr. 292, and Bridgeman v. Greene, 2 Ves. Sr. 627, in which there was much evidence that the person was perfectly aware of what he was doing, and repeatedly confirmed it. Upon that Lord Chief Justice Wilmot's observation is ' that it only tends to show more clearly the deep-rooted influence obtained over him.' Lord Eldon, after referring to those cases with approbation, applying the principle to the case before him, in which the grantor was a widow in the prime of life, said : ' The question is not whether she knew what she was doing, had done, or proposed to do, but how the intention was produced ; whether all that care and prudence was placed around her as against those who advised her, which from their situation and relation with respect to her they were bound to exert in her behalf.' In the case of Dent v. Bennett, Lord Cottenham quoted Sir Samuel Romilly's language, uttered thirty years before, and incorporated it in his opinion as an established principle of equity. 4 My. & Cr.