compulsory payment

A payment compelled by force of law either directly through process or by suasion through threat of process which is not to be resisted. Blanchard v Blanchard, 201 NY 134, 94 NE 630. To constitute a compulsory payment, it is not essential that the demand be made by an officer who is prepared to enforce it by process. There may be compulsion which justifies and virtually requires payment to be made of the illegal demands of a private person who has it in his power seriously to prejudice the property rights of another, and to impose upon the latter the risk of suffering great loss if there be no compliance with the demand. Slate ex ref. McCarty v Nelson, 41 Minn 25, 42 N W 548. To constitute "compulsion" which will be regarded as sufficient to make a payment involuntary, there must be some actual or threatened exercise of power possessed, or believed to be possessed, by the party exacting or receiving the payment over the person or properly of another, for which the latter has no means of immediate relief other than making the payment. 40 Am J1st Payrn § 162. See involuntary payment.