{{Short description|English court case in 1725}} {{redirect|John Everet|people with similar names|John Everett (disambiguation)}} {{Use Oxford spelling|date=June 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}} {{Infobox court case | name = Everet v Williams | court = | date_filed = | image = File:Asalto_al_coche.jpg | caption = ''Asalto al coche'' by Goya | date decided = 1725 | full name = John Everet v Joseph Williams | citations = 2 Pothier on Obligations 3<br />9 LQR 197 | judges = | prior actions = | subsequent actions = | opinions = | transcripts = | Keywords = }} '''''Everet v Williams''''' [1725] (also known as the "'''Highwayman's Case'''") is an English court case dating back to 1725, regarding the enforceability of contracts to commit crimes. In this case, the contract was to share the spoils of armed robbery, which the court refused to uphold.<ref name=LQR>{{cite journal |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title= The Highwayman's Case|url= http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/lqr9&div=25&id=&page=|journal= Law Quarterly Review|volume= 9|date= 1893|page= 197}}</ref><ref name=THC>{{cite web | url=http://everything2.com/title/The+Highwayman%2527s+Case | title=The Highwayman's Case: Formally Known as Everet v. Williams | publisher=Everything2.com}}</ref>
There are no contemporaneous reports of the case surviving, and most references to it relate to a summary of the case found in the 1893 Law Quarterly Review, which in turn relies upon a text from 1802, an English translation of a French work on the law of obligations by Robert Joseph Pothier.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/treatiseonlawofo02pothuoft|title=A Treatise on the Law of Obligations or Contracts, Volume II|page=3|year=1802}}</ref>
==Facts== John Everet and Joseph Williams were both highwaymen, and entered into a partnership to split the proceeds from their robberies.<ref name=LQR /> For some time, the two engaged in this pursuit on Hounslow Heath, as well as at Bagshot, Salisbury, Hampstead, and elsewhere.<ref name=LQR /> When the proceeds of these activities were sold, Everet believed that Williams had maneuvered himself into receiving more than his fair share of the profits.<ref name=THC /> For some unknown reason, Everet decided to take his grievance to the courts for settlement.<ref name=THC /> He hired attorneys and counsel to sue Williams in court for the balance he thought due, pleading "for discovery, an account, and general relief" for the "profits" made under their "partnership".<ref name=THC />
The plaintiff's pleadings referred to the nature of the partnership that it was "skilled in dealing in several sorts of commodities" and that they "proceeded jointly in the said dealings with good success on Hounslow Heath, where they dealt with a gentleman for a gold watch", adding that Hounslow Heath "was a good and convenient place to deal in, and that the said commodities were very plenty at Finchley aforesaid".<ref name=LQR />
The pleadings went on to state that the parties had "dealt with several gentlemen for divers watches, rings, swords, canes, hats, cloaks, horses, bridles, saddles, and other things to the value of £200 and upwards", and that these goods were obtained for "little or no money….after some small discourse with the said gentleman", adding that "the said things were dealt for 'at a very cheap rate.'"<ref name=LQR />
==Judgment== On 30 October 1725 lawyers acting on behalf of John Everet presented a bill in equity at the Court of Exchequer, setting out the details of his claim.<ref name=THC /> Less than two weeks later, on 13 November 1725, the Court of Exchequer was insulted at being asked to settle a dispute between admitted felons over the proceeds of crime and considered the bill "both scandalous and impertinent".<ref name=LQR /> Not only was the case dismissed, but a warrant was issued for the arrest of the two solicitors who brought the suit. Subsequently, both solicitors, William White and William Wreathock, were arrested and brought before the court and, on 6 December, both were fined £50 each.<ref name=LQR /> Also on 6 December, the barrister who signed the original bill bringing the suit to court, Jonathan Collins, was ordered to pay all court costs.<ref name=LQR /><ref name=THC />
Williams, the respondent, was arrested and executed by hanging in 1727 in Maidstone, while Everet, the plaintiff, was hanged three years later at Tyburn.<ref name=THC /> Wreathock, the solicitor, was himself convicted of highway robbery in 1735 and sentenced to hang, but his sentence was commuted to penal transportation. He obtained a royal pardon, returned to England, and resumed his practice until 1758, when he was struck off.<ref name=THC /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Stand and deliver, your money or your wife! Of Georgian highwaymen, modern sham marriages, illegal contracts, and abuse of the legal process |website=Cearta.ie |url=http://www.cearta.ie/2017/04/stand-and-deliver-your-money-or-your-wife-of-georgian-highwaymen-modern-sham-marriages-illegal-contracts-and-abuse-of-the-legal-process/ |first=Eoin |last=O’Dell |date=25 April 2017}}</ref>
==Significance== The general principle is still accepted throughout the western system as law, and despite the insufficient nature of the report, it is still regularly cited for its central proposition. In 2013 the case was cited in the UBS case which was brought before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|author = Jerome F. Crotty|url = http://www.lawpact.org/uploads/TaxCheats%20-%20LawPact.pdf|title = The 1725 Highwayman's Case: Not So Classy Tax Cheats Scolded by Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals|date = 2013|location = Chicago|publisher = Rieck and Crotty, P.C.|access-date = 25 January 2014|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140203122958/http://www.lawpact.org/uploads/TaxCheats%20-%20LawPact.pdf|archive-date = 3 February 2014|url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite court |litigants= Thomas v. UBS AG |vol= 706|reporter= F.3d|opinion= 846|pinpoint= |court= 7th Cir.|date= 2013|url= http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FCO%2020130207166|accessdate= |quote=}}</ref> Lord Sumption cited it in his judgment in his 2015 Supreme Court decision in ''Jetivia SA v Bilta (UK) Limited (in liquidation)''<ref>''[http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/23.html Jetivia SA v Bilta (UK) Limited (in liquidation)]'' [2015] UKSC 23 at paragraph [59].</ref> and again in 2016 in his decision in ''Patel v Mirza''.<ref>''[http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2016/42.html Patel v Mirza]'' [2016] UKSC 42 at paragraph [228].</ref>
==See also== *''Ex turpi causa'' *English contract law
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:English contract case law Category:1725 in British law Category:1725 in case law Category:Court of Exchequer Chamber cases