Involuntary payment

Now, it can hardly be meant in this class of cases, that, to make a payment involuntary, it should be by actual violence, or any physical duress. It suffices, if the payment is caused on the one part by an illegal demand, and made on the other part reluctantly and in consequence of that illegality, and without being able to regain possession of his property except by submitting to the payment.

A payment of money upon an illegal or unjust demand, where a party is advised of all the facts, can only be considered involuntary when it is made to secure the release of person or property from detention, or where the payee is armed with apparent authority to seize upon one or the other and to prevent this the pajmient is made. 57 111. App. 240; 94 111. App. 526. What shall constitute the compulsion or coercion which the law will recognize as sufficient to render the payments involuntary, may often be a question of difficulty. It may be said in general that there must be some actual or threatened exercise of power, possessed or supposed to be possessed by the party exacting or receiving the payment, over the person or property of another, from which the latter has no other means of immediate relief. 100 Pa. St. 346; 18 Cal. 272, 407; 46 Cal. 698; 94 111. App. 526; 2 Dillon on Municipal Corporations (4th Ed.), § 943.

One obtained by fraud, oppression, or extortion, or to avoid the use of force to coerce it, or to obtain the release of the person or property from detention. Parcher v. Marathon Co.unty, 52 Wis. 388, 9 N. W. 23. 38 Am. Rep. 745; Wolfe v. Marshal, 52 Mo. 168; Corkle v. Maxwell, 6 Fed. Cas. 555.

Defined under Involuntary in Black's Law Dictionary.