Non Est Factum in UK Law

The plea of non est factum is a plea which must necessarily be kept within narrow limits. Much confusion and uncertainty would result in the field of contract and elsewhere if a man were permitted to try to disown his signature simply by asserting that he did not understand that which he had signed. Furthermore, although the expression is a convenient paraphrase of the plea, it is not enough to assert that "the mind did not go with the pen".

If the deed was not his deed at all, (non est factum) he is not bound by his signature any more than he is bound by a forgery. The document is a nullity just as if a rogue had forged his signature. No one can claim title under it, not even an innocent purchaser who bought on the faith of it, nor an innocent lender who lent his money on the faith of it.

I cannot accept Mr. Eady's submission that there is great difference between signing blind a completed document the contents of which one has not read and signing a printed document, as here, with the blanks for the particular transaction not filled in but agreeing to, or authorising, another to fill in those blanks and the figures later.

Fraud is an imprecise term which takes its colour from the context. Duress however in English law leads usually to voidability rather than initial invalidity, and no doubt the same is true of most cases usually characterised as fraud.

Mr Warwick submitted that an allegation that the main agreement was entered into under the influence of duress must necessarily impeach the arbitration agreement because it is an allegation that the Claimant's will was coerced, vitiating his apparent consent to the main agreement and everything in it. The case should he submitted be regarded as analogous to one of mistake or non est factum affecting the main agreement where arguably an arbitration agreement could not be relied upon.

A person who signs a document at the request of another puts into circulation a document on which, depending on its contents, others may rely. Where a fraudster has tricked, first, the signer of the document, in order to induce the signature, and then some third party, who is induced to rely on the signed document, which of the two victims is the law to prefer? The authorities indicate that the answer is, almost invariably, the latter.

He then made one or two suggestions for limiting her liability, but got the impression that she was indifferent to his suggestions as though she thought it would be a waste of time to put them forward However, while he was still attempting to give his advice to Mrs. Aboody, her husband had burst into the room uninvited and in a high state of excitement.