Fowler v Padget (1798) 7 Term Rep 509; 101 ER 1103 is an old UK insolvency law case, which concerned what amounted to an act of bankruptcy. For technical reasons, because bankruptcy itself was decriminalized and thus it was technically overruled, Lord Kenyon's common law definition of mens rea created an important precedent.
Fowler claimed that Padget had unlawfully broken into his house, trespassed and converted his goods. Padget claimed that he was justified in doing so, because under the Bankrupts Act 1571 (13 Eliz. 1. c. 7), Fowler had committed an act of bankruptcy. Fowler had gone from his house in Manchester, where he worked as a trader, to London because one of his creditors' business had been failing. During the ten days of his departure, Fowler's own creditors had called upon his house, and believed Fowler to have departed for fraudulent reasons under the Bankrupts Act 1603 (1 Jas. 1. c. 15).
Lord Kenyon held that there had been no act of bankruptcy, and Fowler's intention in leaving his house was not fraudulent. Under the Act, only intent to defraud creditors would amount to an Act of bankruptcy.
Ashurst J, Grose J and Lawrence J gave concurring opinions.
Fowler was technically overruled by Robertson v Liddell. However, its reasoning lives on; Lord Kenyon's definition of mens rea of a crime as "voluntary, intentional and malicious" continued in the later 19th century to be quoted approvingly, in Irish law, and "the essence of every offense is the wrongful intent with which it is done," in American law.