333. Affirmative Defense Economic Duress

333. Affirmative Defense--Economic Duress Instruction No 1 Request by Plaintiff Given as Proposed Refused Withdrawn Request by Defendant Given as Modified Requested by Given on Court's Motion Judge Instruction No 1 [Name of defendant] claims that there was no contract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/its] 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 a reasonable person in [name of defendant]'s position would have believed that he or she had no reasonable alternative except 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 bad-faith breach of contract is threatened"]. If you decide that [name of defendant] has proved all of the above, then no contract was created. ___________________________________________________________________________ New September 2003; Revised December 2005, June 2011, December 2011