Schoenfeld v. City of Bradford

Citations

• 16 Pa. Super. 165
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 35

Syllabus

<p>Payment — Voluntary payment — Duress—Recovery back.</p> <p>A voluntary payment of money under a claim of right cannot in general be recovered back, but when a party is compelled by duress of his person or goods to pay money for which he is not liable, it is not voluntary, but compulsory, and he may rescue himself from such duress by payment of the money, and afterwards on proof of the facts recover it back.</p> <p>To entitle a recovery back in such a case there must be compulsion, actual, present and potential, in inducing the payment by force of process available for instant seizure of person or property, when the party so paying it must give notice of the illegality of the demand, and of his involuntary payment. The element of coercion being essential, amere protest or notice will not change the character of the payment, or confer of itself a right of recovery. The threat of legal process is not such duress.</p> <p>Payment — Voluntary payment — License fee — Municipalities.</p> <p>In an action to recover back money alleged to have been paid to a city under duress, it appeared that the plaintiff claimed the right to conduct his business in the city as a permanent business. The city authorities, doubting his good faith, demanded that he should pay a license fee fixed by ordinance for transient retail merchants. Plaintiff acting under advice of counsel and without any compulsion of legal proceedings, voluntarily paid to the city solicitor the license fee demanded under an agreement by which the money was to be returned to him at the end of three months if the city authorities should then be satisfied as to the permanency of the business. The agreement further provided that the question as to the permanency or otherwise of the business might be referred to the judge of the court of common pleas. If the plaintiff ceased to do business in the city within three months, the amount paid to the city solicitor was to be forfeited to the city. Plaintiff ceased to do busine