## Facts

- New York Education Law §§ 120–132 required motion pictures to be licensed before exhibition and imposed license fees based on film footage.
- Paramount Film Distributing Corporation paid $128,322.50 in licensing fees to New York between June 10, 1959 and June 10, 1965.
- The fee schedule charged $3.50 per 1,000 feet for original films and $3 plus an additional $1 per 1,000 feet for copies.
- Paramount paid nearly all fees without protest and did not otherwise resist the licensing procedure or fee payments during the six-year period.
- The licensing statute had existed in some form since 1927.
- After later decisions invalidated the licensing scheme for lack of prompt judicial review, Paramount sought restitution of previously paid fees.

## Issues

1. Whether license-fee payments made without protest under a statute later declared unconstitutional are “involuntary” payments made under duress, permitting restitution.
2. What showing of coercion is required to overcome the voluntary-payment doctrine for regulatory fees.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals held Paramount’s payments were voluntary and not made under duress.
- The court rejected Paramount’s claim for restitution of fees paid without protest.
- The judgment awarding recovery of the fees was reversed and the claim was dismissed to the extent it sought recovery of voluntary payments.

## Legal Principles

- Under the voluntary-payment doctrine, payments made with knowledge of the facts and without protest or immediate coercion are presumptively voluntary and not recoverable, even if the statute is later declared void.
- Restitution for taxes or regulatory fees later determined invalid generally requires proof the payment was compelled by duress or coercion (e.g., imminent loss of property or other pressure leaving no reasonable alternative).
- Routine compliance with a longstanding regulatory scheme, without contemporaneous protest or resistance, ordinarily does not establish duress.
- Subsequent constitutional invalidation of a statute does not, by itself, retroactively convert earlier unprotested payments into involuntary exactions.

## Conclusion

The court denied a refund of film license fees paid over years without protest, holding that later invalidation of the licensing statute did not establish duress and that voluntary payments are not recoverable in restitution absent concrete coercion.


Paramount Film Distrib. Corp. v. State, 30 N.Y.2d 415 (N.Y. 1972)