## Facts

- Machinery Hauling, Inc., a freight carrier, agreed to transport 17 loads of steel from Steel of West Virginia’s plant in Huntington, West Virginia, to Shelby Steel, Inc., in Louisville, Kentucky.
- Near the end of delivery, Steel stated the steel was not merchantable and that Shelby had rejected it.
- Steel orally directed Machinery Hauling to return the last three loads to Steel’s plant.
- Steel’s employee, Robert Bunting, then demanded that Machinery Hauling pay roughly $31,000 (the price of the undelivered loads) and threatened that Steel would stop doing business with Machinery Hauling if it did not pay.
- Machinery Hauling alleged the demand and threat were an attempted extortion and claimed the threatened loss of future business would exceed $1,000,000 per year.
- Machinery Hauling did not pay the demanded amount.

## Issues

1. Whether a threat to cease future business dealings unless money is paid supports a private civil cause of action under West Virginia’s criminal extortion statute or a common-law “extortion” theory.
2. Whether that threat constitutes actionable economic duress where there is no ongoing contractual obligation and the threatened party does not submit by making the demanded payment or concession.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia answered the certified questions consistently with the circuit court and dismissed the action.
- The court declined to recognize an independent civil cause of action based on the criminal extortion statute on the pleaded facts.
- The court held the alleged threat did not state a claim for economic duress because there was no continuing contract to be terminated and Machinery Hauling made no payment or other concession under compulsion.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal extortion statute does not, by itself, create a private civil damages action absent a basis to imply such a remedy under the statute and the pleaded conduct fitting within a recognized civil liability framework.
- Economic duress generally requires an existing, ongoing contractual relationship in which one party uses its contractual leverage to force the other to make a concession.
- Economic duress typically requires that the claimant actually acted under compulsion (such as paying money or entering a new agreement); without such submission, there is ordinarily nothing to rescind or recover.
- A mere threat to discontinue future business dealings, without an obligation to continue dealing, is ordinarily not sufficiently wrongful or coercive to establish economic duress.

## Conclusion

The court refused to convert a disputed demand for payment, backed only by a threat to stop future business, into civil “extortion” or economic duress where the parties lacked an ongoing contractual commitment and the plaintiff did not yield to the demand.


Machinery Hauling, Inc. v. Steel of W. Va., 181 W. Va. 694, 384 S.E.2d 139 (1989)