inducement

Inducement

An advantage or benefit that precipitates a particular action on the part of an individual.

In the law of contracts, the inducement is a pledge or promise that causes an individual to enter into a particular agreement. An inducement to purchase is something that encourages an individual to buy a particular item, such as the promise of a price reduction. Consideration is the inducement to a contract.

In Criminal Law, the term inducement is the motive, or that which leads an individual to engage in criminal conduct.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

inducement

1 the introductory part of a pleading that leads up to and explains the matter in dispute.

2 the kind of conduct which may be struck at by inducing a breach of contract.

Collins Dictionary of Law © W.J. Stewart, 2006

INDUCEMENT, pleading. The statement of matter which is introductory to the principal subject of the declaration or plea, &c., but which is necessary to explain and elucidate it; such matter as is not introductory to or necessary to elucidate the substance or gist of the declaration or plea, &c. nor is collaterally applicable to it, not being inducement but surplusage. Inducement or conveyance, which. are synonymous terms, is in the nature of a preamble to an act of assembly, and leads to the Principal subject of the declaration or plea, &c. the same as that does to the purview or providing clause of the act. For instance, in an action for a nuisance to property in the possession of the plaintiff, the circumstance of his being possessed of the property should be stated as inducement, or byway of introduction to the mention of the nuisance. Lawes, Pl. 66, 67; 1 Chit. Pl. 292; Steph. Pl. 257; 14 Vin. Ab. 405; 20 Id. 845; Bac. Ab. Pleas. &c. I 2.

INDUCEMENT, contracts, evidence. The moving cause of an action.
     2. In contracts, the benefit.which the obligor is to receive is the inducement to making them. Vide Cause; Consideration.
     3. When a person is charged with a crime, he is sometimes induced to make confessions by the flattery of hope, or the torture of fear. When such confessions are made in consequence of promises or threats by a person in authority, they cannot be received in evidence. In England a distinction has been made between temporal and spiritual inducements; confessions made under the former are not receivable in evidence, while the latter may be admitted. Joy on Conf. ss. 1 and 4.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.