Porter v. Sawyer

1 Del. 517

• Court: Superior Court of Delaware
• Decided: July 5, 1835
• Status: Published

Opinion

The Chief Justice

charged the jury.—That, as a general proposition, it was lawful to bet. Contracts of this kind may be entered into and the obligations arising from such contracts must be enforced by courts and juries if they be not such as to effect the good of society, corrupt public morals or infringe upon the private rights or feelings of third persons. Thus a bet on the age of a lady, or on the sex of a person is illegal, according to adjudged cases, because such bets offend the delicacy and injure the feelings of third persons. And a bet on the issue of a general election, whilst pending, would undoubtedly be illegal, as being against public policy, and hurtful to society. In this country especially the purity of elections is a matter of the first consequence to the due administration of the government, and any thing which tends to corrupt these ought not to be allowed. Has such a bet as this that tendency? The nomination election referred to is understood to be a regular poll, opened and conducted as far as practicable in the same manner with other elections, by the members of one of the great political parties, to determine who among the applicants for office shall be fixed on as the candidates of the party. Its object is to concentrate the votes of the party on the most popular candidate, and the obligations of party are universally understood to require the support at the general election of the successful candidate at the nomination election. We cannot shut our eyes to the condition of our own affairs, nor to the fact that the person brought out at the nomination election by the party in the majority is almost sure to be the elected officer: that in truth as to the filling of offices with good men a nomination election held by the party in the majority is of quite as much consequence to the public as a general election. Is it.not then equally important to preserve the purity of these elections? If they are corrupted by bribery or an undue influence raised through the medium of betting, have not such bets a tendency to impair the purity of elections? If they have, they ought not to be countenanced.

J. J.2. Bayard, for plaintiff. Booth, for defendant.

The entertaining of suits for such bets is also objectionable from their tendency to embarrass, if not corrupt, the administration of justice by introducing into the jury box the excited feelings of political controversy than which nothing is more unfavorable to the calm and impartial administration of justice. (The chief justice referred to the case of York vs. Cubbage in the late court of common pleas, in which for a pitiful bet of a few dollars, the time of the court was occupied through two closely contested trials, and the halls of justice disgraced by the disclosure of an angry political quarrel in the jury room.)

On another ground, also, this bet seems to us to be objectionable, that of improperly interfering with the private rights and the feelings of third persons. Upon what principle had the parties here the right to bet on the personal popularity of Michael Downey or of Joseph Williams? These individuals had the right to stand before the public and to have their claims to office tested without such an interference by third persons as must necessarily have some effect on the result. Our opinion therefore is, that this bet is illegal.

On the other question we are equally of opinion that the plff. is not entitled to recover. These parties deposited in the hands of Sawyer, a mutual friend, the one fifty dollars in money, the other a check on the bank for fifty dollars. This check has never been converted into money and the stakeholder was not bound to convert it; indeed it is proved that he could not convert it, for when it was-presented for that purpose payment was refused. What then was he bound to pay on the decision of the bet? Certainly, what he received. And if the plff. was entitled to sue Sawyer for his deposit, the check, as such, could not be recovered in this form of action for money had and received to plff.’s use, but in an action of trover for the'property. Verdict for defendant.