Mulligan v. Western Union Tel. Co.

20 F. Supp. 953, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1512
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedOctober 5, 1937
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 20 F. Supp. 953 (Mulligan v. Western Union Tel. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mulligan v. Western Union Tel. Co., 20 F. Supp. 953, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1512 (D.N.J. 1937).

Opinion

FORMAN, District Judge.

In 1935 the country was swept by a fad or craze known as the “chain letter” scheme, the workings of which were something like the following although there were innumerable variations of the idea. X received a letter from Y in which Y stated that he had found a way to get rich quickly. He instructed X to place his name in the first position on the list of a numbei of names which he inclosed. X was further instructed to send a specified sum of money to the person whose name appeared last on the list. He was advised to write in like tenor to several of his friends, inclosing to each a copy of the list which contained his (X’s) name in first place, omitting the last name, he having forwarded to that person the sum of money specified. X is advised that when his name- reaches the bottom of the list money will begin to roll in upon him from all of the “links” in the chain which was started when his name was placed at the top of the list. He is then told that if he spurns this opportunity for untold wealth he should return the list to Y so that the chain might not be broken.

The American public responded to the idea with an enthusiasm characteristic of its desire for wealth, its generosity to help the next fellow to a similar state of well being, and its childlike trust that others would do unto it as it did to tile others. The result was that the United States mails became burdened with hundreds of thousands of these letters and their inclosures daily until there dawned upon the myriad hosts of letter writers that Santa Claus was not genuine but only the central figure in a very pretty myth and that for most, great wealth is not acquired by the exertion of as little effort as is required to copy a form [954]*954of letter five times and to address it to five different persons.

Irate protests upon the part of the Postal • Department and prosecutions and threatened prosecutions for fraud also helped to cramp the style of the correspondents until in due time the fad faded into oblivion and the body of the citizenry shook itself out of another bad dream. 1

Before this cessation, and while, the United States postal inspectors were rattling fraud orders and indictments at the mobs of letter writers, various other means of transmitting the letters were found. One of these means was by way of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

This practice so exercised two citizens of this state, Messrs. Andrew W. Mulligan, of Camden, and William F. Zwirner, of Merchantville, in Camden county, that they investigated the law upon the subject and they say they have ample remedy for the wrong committed by the said company. In June of 1935 each started a suit in the New Jersey Supreme Court against the Western Union Telegraph Company, in which he styled himself as a “common informer.”

The complaint of Mr. Mulligan goes on to say. that the Western Union Telegraph Company aided arid abetted in the transmittal of “chain telegrams,” which amounted to lotteries. He described the method of operation in the sixth paragraph of his complaint in the following language:

“No. 6. The method of operation of the aforementioned lotteries was as follows: The person purchasing the ticket, hereinafter called the buyer, and the person selling the ticket, hereinafter called the seller, entered into the- offices of the above named defendant and paid over to the agent of the aforesaid corporation, the sum of Two ($2.00) Dollars, and the company charges, together with a certain form heretofore made, conceived, typed, mimeographed, or different other mode of printing made by, with, and/or the direction, knowledge or consent or acquiescence of the defendant corporation or its agents, reading as follows:
“ ‘Send $2 to Western Union Stop Omit top name Stop Add yours Stop Sell two copies to good prospects only Stop Show receipt for money order Stop Bring customer to office to certify transaction.’
“In addition to the above, each form contained the names of six alleged individuals.
“The next step was to forward by Western Union, a money order of $2.00 to the name and address on the top of said list, after which said name was marked off and then the agent of the defendant corporation prepared two new forms containing substantially the same wording and including thereon the name of the buyer at the bottom of the list of persons attached to said forms and excluding the name of the person who had been at the top of said list. The buyer, in addition, receiving a receipt showing the payment of the sum of $2.00, plus the company charges. It then became the duty of the purchaser to follow the directions of the defendant corporation,' to [955]*955sell the two copies then in his possession, to two additional purchasers whom he would bring into the offices of the defendant corporation and who would pay over to the agents of the defendant corporation the sum of $2.00 individually, together with the company charges, which sum or sums would be forwarded to the person whose name appeared at the top of the list and who in return would receive a receipt acknowledging the receipt of the sum of $2.-00, together with a new form containing thereon the name of the then purchaser at the bottom of the list, and eliminating the name of the person upon the top of the list, and etc.”

He says that in so doing the Western Union Telegraph Company violated the several following provisions of the Constitution and laws of the state of New Jersey :

, Article 4, § 7, par. 2, of the Constitution of New Jersey as amended in 1897:
“No lottery shall be authorized by the legislature or otherwise in this state, and no ticket in any lottery shall be bought or sold within this state, nor shall pool-selling, book-making or gambling of any kind be authorized or allowed within this state, nor shall any gambling device, practice or game of chance now prohibited by law be legalized, or the remedy, penalty or punishment now provided therefor be in any way diminished.”
“An Act for the punishment of crimes,” N.J.P.L.1898, p. 809, 2 N.J.Comp.St.1910, pp. 1743, 1764, § 57:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
20 F. Supp. 953, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1512, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mulligan-v-western-union-tel-co-njd-1937.