Retreat, Duty to

A duty found in some jurisdictions obligating a person to retreat from a dangerous situation rather than employ self-defense and injure another. However, one is not usually required to retreat when attacked in one’s own home. In tort law, the failure to exercise one’s duty to retreat may create liability in the party who could have retreated.
Prosser & Keeton on Torts 127–128 (5th ed. 1984). In criminal law, the failure to retreat except from one’s home or from a robber will foreclose the defense of self-defense in a minority of states. Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law 1133 (3d ed. 1982).