Criminal LawThe act requirement
People v. Beardsley
Michigan Supreme Court · Decided December 10, 1907 · Core case
Full citation
People v. Beardsley, 113 N.W. 1128 (Mich. 1907).
Quote pages are pages of 150 Mich. 206, the official report, so quotes and pinpoints cite it; for 113 N.W. 1128, find the page in that reporter.
VerifiedQuotes, pinpoints and citation checked word for word against the opinion; facts checked against the opinion before publication. October 20, 2026.This brief explains the opinion as issued. Later treatment and current-law status are not assessed here.
People
state
Beardsley
bartenderrespondent
Brief
Facts
Beardsley lived with his wife in Pontiac, occupying two ground-floor rooms in a house where other rooms and one basement living room were rented to tenants. While his wife was temporarily absent, Beardsley arranged for Blanche Burns to go to his apartments. They had been acquainted for some time, knew each other's habits, had drunk liquor together, and had twice stayed together in Detroit. On Saturday evening, March 18, 1905, they met and went to his residence. They drank steadily through Monday afternoon, except when Beardsley worked Sunday as a hotel bartender. On Monday afternoon, Beardsley said they must fix up the rooms because his wife was likely to return at any time. Burns sent a young hotel employee to purchase camphor and morphine tablets. He procured six grains of morphine in quarter-grain tablets. Burns concealed the morphine, but Beardsley discovered her putting something into her mouth. He struck the box from her hand and crushed several tablets with his foot, but Burns swallowed two tablets, probably taking three to four grains. An hour later, Beardsley asked the young man to take Burns to a basement room occupied by a tenant named Skoba. Burns was in a stupor, and Beardsley was too intoxicated to assist. The young man and Skoba put her on Skoba's bed. Between nine and ten o'clock that evening, Skoba became alarmed and called a doctor and the city marshal, who found Burns dead.
Issue
Was Beardsley under a legal duty toward Burns, an adult who voluntarily joined him in drinking at his house and took morphine there, to make all reasonable and proper effort to save her, so that his omission made him guilty of manslaughter?
Holding
Beardsley owed no legal duty to Burns because she was an adult woman who went on a carouse with him voluntarily, and he had assumed neither in fact nor by implication any care or control over her. Because his failure to make effort to save her involved at most a moral obligation rather than a legal duty, his omission could not support a manslaughter conviction.
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