Economic Duress: An Essay in Perspective

The boundaries of common law duress have been gradually expanding for more than a century. The processes of expansion are themselves of interest, as illustrating methods of growth in a system of case law. More important is the goal toward which this movement aims. For it is through duress and related ideas that private law has dealt most directly with problems raised by inequality in bargaining power. Particularly in the field now known as economic duress, courts have been compelled to take a stand on that central issue of modern politics, the control of economic power. Both the growth in remedial doctrines and the limits that have been set are significant, for in both can be found the trace of broader objectives which have been only partly defined.