duress
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 271 U.S. 43 - Hartsville Oil Mill v. United States · 1926Most cited · 137 citing opinions
A threat to break a contract does not in itself constitute duress. Before the coercive effect of the threatened action can be inferred, there must be evidence of some probable consequences of it to person or property for which the remedy afforded by the courts is inadequate.
How the Supreme Court has restated “duress”
Each Supreme Court definition of “duress,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “duress”
Court decisions citing the 8 opinions that defined “duress” — 631 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 8 definitions, chronological · 1781–1926
- ORIGINAL
in the eye of the law, nothing will excuse the act of joining an enemy, but the fear of immediate death; not the fear of any inferior personal injury, nor the apprehension of any outrage upon property.
as defense to treason
that degree of constraint or danger, either actually inflicted or threatened and impending, which is sufficient, in severity or in apprehension, to overcome the mind and will of a person of ordinary firmness
Actual violence is not necessary to constitute duress even at common law, as understood in the parent country, because consent is the very essence of a contract, and if there be compulsion there is no consent, and it is well-settled law that moral compulsion, such as that produced by threats to take life or to inflict great bodily harm, as well as that produced by imprisonment, is sufficient to destroy free agency, without which there can be no contract, as in that state of the case there is no consent.
no case can be found, we apprehend, where a party who, without force or intimidation and with a full knowledge of all the facts of the case, accepts on account of an unliquidated and controverted demand, a sum less than what he claims and believes to be due him, and agrees to accept that sum in full satisfaction, has been permitted to avoid his act on the ground that this is duress.
In its more extended sense duress means that degree of constraint or danger, either actually inflicted, or threatened and impending, which is sufficient in severity or in apprehension, to overcome the mind and will of a person of ordinary firmness.
Duress is a good defence to a deed, or any other written obligation, if it be proved that the instrument was procured by such means; nor is it necessary to show, in order to establish such a defence, that actual violence was used, because consent is the very essence of a contract, and if there be compulsion there is no binding consent, and it is well settled that moral compulsion, such as that produced by threats to take life or to inflict great bodily harm, as well as that produced by imprisonment, is sufficient in legal contemplation to destroy free agency, without which there can be no contract, because in that state of the case there is no consent.
contract defense
Acts induced by duress such as is here relied on, which operates only on the mind and falls short of actual physical compulsion, are not void in law, but are voidable only, at the election of him whose act was induced by it.
voidable acts