In People v. Discala (45 NY2d 38 [1978]), the Court, construing the same statutes, was confronted with the question whether, even where the prosecutor initially charges the higher degree, the court is empowered to charge the lower degree as a concurrent inclusory count. In concluding that trial courts could, in an appropriate case, do so, the Court reasoned that: "it is an anomaly of our statutes that the language used to define the felony of coercion in the first degree (Penal Law, 135.65) is virtually identical to that employed to describe the misdemeanor of coercion in the second degree (Penal Law, 135.60). However, this is not as surprising or troublesome as it may at first appear since, in another context involving a constitutional challenge to the felony statute, this court elucidated the purpose behind each of the two degrees of the crime (People v. Eboli, 34 NY2d 281, 313 NE2d 746, 357 NYS2d 435). Guided by commentaries and after examining other provisions of law, this court explained that: 'under the related coercion statutes, it is likely that despite the verbal duplication in the lower degree, the drafters and the Legislature intended that the general rule be that coercion in the first degree, the felony, be charged whenever the method of coercion was to instill a fear of injury to a person or damage to property. Making the misdemeanor offense "all inclusive" is apparently a "safety-valve" feature included in the event an unusual factual situation should develop where the method of coercion is literally by threat of personal or property injury, but for some reason it lacks the heinous quality the Legislature associated with such threats' (34 NY2d at p 287)" (Discala, 45 NY2d at 42 [emphasis supplied]). The Court of Appeals went on to conclude that the trial court had not erred in refusing to charge misdemeanor coercion as a concurrent inclusory count, because there was no reasonable view of the evidence to support the conclusion that the crime in the scenario in that case presented an " 'unusual factual situation' " where the crime "lacked a heinous quality" (id. at 43).