DURESS (through Fr. from

See also:

• LAT

Lat. duritia, harshness, severity, durus, hard)  , in law, constraint or compulsion . Duress may be of two kinds . It may consist in personal restraint or actual violence or imprisonment; or it may be by threats (per minas), as where a person is compelled to an act by threats of immediate death or grievous bodily harm . Duress, in certain cases, may be pleaded as a defence of an act which would otherwise be a crime, but the extent to which the plea of duress can be urged is unascertained . At common law a contract entered into under duress is voidable at the option of one of the parties .