Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ He simply did a lawful act by all the powers enabling him to do it, and that was all. Therefore the word 'fraud' may be discarded as inappropriate. The question is whether the service of a writ, otherwise lawful, becomes unlawful because the hope for a chance to make it was the sole motive for other acts tending to create the chance, which other acts would themselves have been lawful but for that hope. We assume that motives may make a difference in liability. ”

“ Therefore it may be dangerous to say that doing an act lawful in itself as a means of doing another act lawful in itself cannot make a wrong by the combination. It is enought to say that it does not usually have that result, and that the case at bar is not an exception to the general rule. We must take the allegations of the answer to be true, although they are manifestly absurd. The plaintiff could not have known that the defendant's lawyer would advise him to go to Ohio, and that the defendant would go to his father's house, instead of to Nebraska, when his business was over. ”

“ Mr. Justice McKenna and Mr. Justice Day concur in the result.
Notes
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105) . ”