Mail etiquette

[Robert Huff]

Ted Mittelstaedt writes:

>  For example, you can hold a gun to someone's head and make them
>  sign a contract.  The second you walk away they take the contract
>  to a court and bam, it's invalidated because they signed under
>  duress.
>  
>  And if you look at recent court decisions, the definition of
>  signing under duress has been -exceedingly- stretched these days.
>  Nowadays if someone can convince a court that the contract holder
>  didn't completely inform them of every last little condition, they
>  can invalidate the contract.

	"Consent" in the legal sense has two usually omitted
qualifiers: "fully informed" and "freely given".  Duress negates the
second; failure to provide adequate information can negate the
first.
	That being said, it may wall be the case the working definition
of "adequate" has expanded over time.  How it changed, and why, is
no doubt the subject of ongoing enquiry.


				Robert Huff