Purposes of Contracts 201 



performance of a contract unless the one deceived 

 choose to waive the fraud and go on with the con- 

 tract, and one receiving any part of the benefits 

 of the contract, knowing that he has been fraud- 

 ulently induced to enter into it, thereby waives 

 the fraud and will be bound by the contract. 



Duress generally consists of threats of bodily 

 harm or imprisonment so strong and imminent 

 as to overpower the free will of the person en- 

 tering into the contract; and it usually vitiates 

 the contract and allows one upon whom the 

 duress has been practiced to avoid the contract 

 or successfully resist its enforcement. 



Undue influence is that improper influence or 

 persuasion whereby the will of a person is over- 

 powered and his consent to entering into a con- 

 tract is really not his own consent, but the doing 

 of the will of another. Such influence gives him 

 a right to avoid the contract if he choose. 



We now come to the purposes for which con- 

 tracts may be made. The general rule is that 

 a contract may be made for any legal purpose, 

 but that illegality of object voids a contract. 

 This is the legal way of saying that one may not 

 contract to do or procure the doing of an illegal 

 act, and by an illegal act we mean an act which 

 is expressly declared by statute to be illegal, 

 or which was illegal by the express rules of the 

 common law, or which is contrary to public 



