Duress - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition duress

Definition :

Duress [fr. duresse, Fr.; durities, Lat., constraint], imprisonment, compulsion.

Duress is either by imprisonment or by threats. In order to constitute duress by imprisonment, either the imprisonment or the duress consequent upon it must be tortious and unlawful.

By the Common Law, a contract made during duress is not void, but voidable; and the person upon whom it is practised may avail himself of the duress as a special defence to an action thereupon at any time. But the person who has employed the force cannot allege it as a defence, if the contract be insisted upon by the other.

Where a person is not a free agent, and is not able to protect himself, the Court will protect him, and will set aside a contract made under duress. Circumstances also of extreme necessity and distress of the party, although not accompanied by the direct restraint or duress, may, in like manner, so entirely overcome his free agency as to justify the Court in setting aside a contract made by him on account of some oppression or fradulent advantage, or imposition, attendant upon it. See Scott v. Sebright, (1886) 12 PD 21, in which Butt, J., declared a marriage void on the petition of the wife.

is meant the compulsion under which a person acts through fear of personal suffering as from injury to the body or from confinement, actual or threatened, Cumming v. Ince, (1847) 11 QB 112.