332. Affirmative Defense Duress

332. Affirmative Defense--Duress Instruction No 1 Request by Plaintiff Given as Proposed Refused Withdrawn Request by Defendant Given as Modified Requested by Given on Court's Motion Judge Instruction No 1 [Name of defendant] claims that there was no contract because [his/her] consent was given under duress. To succeed, [name of defendant] must prove all of the following: 1. 2. That [name of plaintiff] used a wrongful act or wrongful threat to pressure [name of defendant] into consenting to the contract; That [name of defendant] was so afraid or intimidated by the wrongful act or wrongful threat that [he/she] did not have the free will to refuse to consent to the contract; and That [name of defendant] would not have consented to the contract without the wrongful act or wrongful threat. 3. An act or a threat is wrongful if [insert relevant rule--e.g., "a criminal act is threatened"]. If you decide that [name of defendant] has proved all of the above, then no contract was created. ___________________________________________________________________________ New September 2003