Definition
A phrase of art drawn from fraudulent conveyance law, describing conduct that obstructs or postpones a creditor's ability to reach a debtor's property. To hinder and delay is to interpose an obstacle or unjustifiable delay between a creditor and satisfaction of the debt owed—short of a completed fraud, but more than innocent dealing. The phrase typically appears in statutes and pleadings targeting transfers made with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors, where each word carries independent legal weight.
The phrase is most commonly encountered in two contexts:
1. Fraudulent transfer/conveyance law: A debtor who conveys property to a third party—even if no actual fraud is completed—may be found to have hindered and delayed creditors if the transfer put assets beyond their reach or bought time against collection.
2. Obstruction statutes: Federal and state obstruction provisions sometimes use analogous phrasing to describe interference with legal process or enforcement proceedings that does not rise to the level of completed obstruction or fraud.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Hinder" means to obstruct or impede progress; "delay" means to cause something to happen later than expected. Both are common, non-technical English words.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Hinder" — to keep back or behind; to prevent from starting or moving forward. "Delay" — to retard; to stop for a time; to defer.
The gap matters here. In everyday use, hinder and delay are near-synonyms, and a reader might assume the legal phrase is simply emphatic repetition. It is not. Courts have treated the two words as carrying distinct meanings: to hinder means to place an obstacle in the creditor's path; to delay means to interpose time unjustifiably. A transfer can delay without hindering (slowing collection without preventing it) or hinder without completing a fraud. Historical sources confirm that "hinder" is not synonymous with "delay" even within the legal phrase itself.
Common Confusion
The phrase hinder and delay is often treated as synonymous with defraud within the same statutory clause. The three-part formulation—"hinder, delay, or defraud"—appears throughout fraudulent conveyance statutes derived from the Statute of Elizabeth (1571). Researchers should not collapse these terms. Conduct can satisfy hinder and delay without constituting a completed fraud; intent to defraud is a separate and typically more demanding element. Courts have expressly held that the fraudulent intent question is one of fact, meaning a transaction can be set aside for hindering and delaying creditors even where outright fraud is not proven.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase has deep roots in the Statute of Elizabeth and flows through centuries of common law fraudulent conveyance doctrine into modern uniform law. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century sources will encounter it frequently in equity proceedings brought by creditors to set aside conveyances. The critical navigational point: historical sources use hinder and delay as a term of art tied specifically to the creditor-debtor context. Do not assume it translates directly into modern obstruction or delay-of-proceedings analysis, which draws on different statutory lineages.
When searching historical case reporters, note that the phrase often appears in the conjunctive—"hinder and delay"—and courts sometimes distinguish it from "defraud" in jury instructions and findings. Bouvier confirms that the word "hinder" is not synonymous with "delay," a distinction some later digests and indexes obscure by treating the phrase as a single undifferentiated concept.
Modern researchers should trace how the phrase migrated into the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (UFTA) and its successor, the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act (UVTA), where intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors remains a basis for avoidance of transfers. The structure of the modern statutes preserves the three-part disjunctive, meaning each element can independently support a claim.
Corpus connections: Cases involving hinder and delay often sit at the intersection of debtor-creditor law, equity, and commercial transactions. Researchers may need to cross-reference equity pleading sources alongside commercial law reporters when working in jurisdictions with older equitable traditions.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st Ed.) and Black's (2nd Ed.) are in close agreement, relying on the same underlying New York Superior Court authority for the core proposition: hinder and delay describes an attempt to defraud rather than a successful fraud—the interposition of an obstacle or unjustifiable time before a creditor can realize what is owed. This framing is significant. It situates the phrase squarely in the attempt/incomplete-fraud space, not completed wrongdoing.
Bouvier adds meaningful texture. First, it cites additional authority (74 N.Y. 597) alongside the shared New York Superior Court citation. Second, and most importantly, Bouvier expressly flags that "hinder" is not synonymous with "delay"—a point Black's leaves implicit. Bouvier also notes that fraudulent intent is a question of fact, a doctrinal clarification that neither edition of Black's foregrounds.
What the historical dictionaries miss: none of the three sources addresses the phrase as it operates in obstruction or enforcement-delay contexts outside the creditor-debtor setting, nor do they engage with the statutory evolution that would lead to uniform act codification. Researchers relying solely on these sources will have an accurate but incomplete picture, confined to the nineteenth-century creditor-debtor equity tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase originates in English equity and was received broadly across American jurisdictions through statutes modeled on the Statute of Elizabeth. Modern application varies depending on whether a jurisdiction has adopted the UFTA, the UVTA, or retains older state-specific fraudulent conveyance statutes. The precise elements and available remedies differ accordingly, and researchers should verify which statutory framework governs in the relevant jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Construction Delay Claims — Excusable, Compensable, and Concurrent Delay (realestate_95). Note: this entry addresses construction delay doctrine, a distinct legal context. Relevant only where a researcher is analyzing delay-based claims in construction or contract settings, not fraudulent conveyance doctrine.