Legal Definitions - coercion

Coercion refers to the act of compelling someone to do something against their will, often through the use of force, threats, or other forms of undue pressure. In a legal context, it means that a person's actions or agreements are not considered voluntary or legally valid because they were made under duress, rather than with free and informed consent.

Coercion can manifest in several ways:

• Physical Coercion: This involves actual physical force or credible threats of harm to a person, their loved ones, or their property. Actions taken under such threats are not legally binding.
• Criminal Coercion: This is a specific type of coercion where someone threatens to commit a crime, accuse another person of a crime, expose a damaging secret, or misuse official power to force someone into a particular action.
• Economic Coercion: This occurs when one party improperly uses their significant economic power to compel another party into an agreement or action they would not otherwise choose, by threatening severe financial harm or withholding essential resources.

Here are some examples illustrating the concept of coercion:

• Example 1 (Physical Threat): A homeowner is held at gunpoint and forced to sign a document transferring ownership of their house to the assailant. The homeowner's signature on the deed would be legally invalid because it was obtained under direct physical threat and not given voluntarily. The law recognizes that true consent was absent due to the immediate danger.

• Example 2 (Criminal Coercion - Threat to Expose Secret): A disgruntled former employee discovers sensitive, embarrassing information about their previous employer's personal life. The former employee then threatens to publicly expose this information, which would cause significant reputational damage, unless the employer pays them a large sum of money. This constitutes criminal coercion because the former employee is attempting to restrict the employer's freedom of action (refusing to pay) by threatening to reveal a secret that would subject the victim to ridicule and harm their goodwill.

• Example 3 (Economic Coercion): A large construction company has a contract with a small, specialized subcontractor. Nearing the project deadline, the construction company informs the subcontractor that they will withhold the final payment for work already completed, which the subcontractor desperately needs to pay its employees, unless the subcontractor agrees to perform additional, unpaid work that was not part of the original agreement. This is economic coercion because the construction company is improperly leveraging its financial power and the subcontractor's dependence to force them into an unfavorable agreement, effectively removing the subcontractor's ability to negotiate freely.