Aaron v. United States

• Decision Date: 29 June 1907
• Docket Number: 2,161.
• Parties: AARON v. UNITED STATES et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

155 F. 833

AARON v. UNITED STATES et al.

No. 2,161.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

June 29, 1907

David Goldsmith, for plaintiff in error.

George F. McNulty, James A. Seddon, and R. A. Holland, Jr., for defendants in error.

Before HOOK, Circuit Judge, and PHILIPS, District Judge.

PHILIPS District Judge.

This is a contempt proceeding, in which the plaintiff in error was fined $250 and costs, growing out of the following state of facts:

In December, 1903, various railroad companies, including the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company filed bills in equity in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Missouri against several so-called railroad ticket 'scalpers,' to enjoin them from dealing in that class of tickets being and to be sold by said railroad companies as round-trip tickets to and from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, at St. Louis. One of the suits by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company was instituted against Bennett Wasserman, Wasserman &amp Co., a corporation, and A. Aaron et al. The subpoena issued in this case was not served personally on the defendant Aaron; but on the return day the defendants, including Aaron appeared by counsel, Judson and Green and others, and by written stipulation with complainants' solicitors consented that a temporary injunction be ordered by the court, without prejudice to put in contestation the truth of the allegations of the bill and the right to the relief prayed for on final hearing. Accordingly, on the 29th day of April, 1904, Circuit Judge Adams presiding, the court entered a temporary injunction, enjoining the defendants 'and each of them, and also their agents, servants, employes attorneys and all persons acting by or under their authority or direction, or the authority or direction of either of them, during the pendency of this suit, from buying, selling, dealing in or soliciting the purchase or sale of any signed contract nontransferable reduced rate ticket or tickets, or any part thereof, or any coupon thereof hereafter issued in good faith by said complainant, or by any other connecting railroad company for use over the road or roads of said complainant, its lines or any part thereof, issued on account of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition or World's Fair, to be held in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in the year 1904, which tickets are by their terms nontransferable reduced fare tickets, and from soliciting, advising or urging persons other than the original purchaser thereof to use or attempt to use said tickets or any part thereof, on any train or trains on any lines of road of said complainant.'

On the 30th day of July, 1904, the complainant in said suit presented to the Honorable Walter H. Sanborn, one of the circuit judges of said court, a petition for an attachment in contempt against said Wasserman & Co., Bennett Wasserman, and A. Aaron, for having violated said injunction order. The offense charged consisted in the 'scalping' and sale of such ticket sold on behalf of the complainant, by the Erie Railroad Company, at the city of New York, on the 22d day of July, 1904, to one L. Goldman. The defendant, Aaron, made return to the writ by the name of Lewis Aaron, as his true name, and therein set forth as an answer to the writ: (1) That the information upon which the said order to show cause was granted, as also the affidavits filed in support thereof, failed to show that the said Aaron had been guilty of any violation of the order of injunction theretofore entered in said cause; (2) that said order of injunction was not served upon him, and he had no knowledge of the same or any of the proceedings in the cause theretofore.

The answer further stated and admitted that, as an employe of Wasserman & Co., he, the said Aaron, did undertake to sell the ticket which had been issued to said Goldman, and that being informed that said ticket had not been honored, but had been taken up at the Union Station in the city of St. Louis, subsequently refunded the amount of money, to wit, $14, which he had previously received from said person, but denied generally the other averments in said information.

The assignments of error are that the information for the attachment is insufficient, for the reason that it does not show service of the order of injunction upon the defendant and knowledge on his part thereof, and because the record fails to show such service; and (2) that there was no competent evidence that the sale of the ticket in question was in violation of the injunction, and that the offer of the ticket in evidence should have been rejected; (3) that the court erred in admitting in evidence the letter written by Mr. Judson.

While the defendant was impleaded by the name of 'A. Aaron,' the trial court found that there was sufficient evidence to show that sometimes he was known, especially to some of the police force of the city of St. Louis stationed in the vicinity of the office where he conducted his business, by the name of A. Aaron; and there is no ground for permissible contention but that he was the identical Aaron proceeded against in the original bill of complaint, and the person had in view in the contempt proceedings. The evidence shows that he was the only Aaron connected with the business of Wasserman & Co. in the sale of such tickets at St. Louis; that he was the vice president of the company, and the active agent therefor, and the identical Mr. Aaron who obtained from Goldman the ticket in question and sold it to one Ernst F. Barthel. It could not therefore be held that he was misled, or that he was not a party in fact to the proceeding.

The second objection goes to the sufficiency of the petition or motion for attachment. It is urged that the petition is defective in not sufficiently referring to the original bill of complaint and reciting the terms of the injunction order alleged to have been disobeyed. The petition is entitled as in the original bill of complaint. It charges that the defendant violated and disobeyed the temporary injunction heretofore granted by the court against the defendants in the suit, including Wasserman & Co., Bennett Wasserman, and said Aaron, granted on the 29th day of April, 1904, in pursuance of the stipulation entered into by all the parties to the cause. It then sets out with particularity the issuing to and the purchase of the ticket in question by, said L. Goldman, who traveled thereon from the city of New York to St. Louis, and the purchase thereof by said Wasserman & Co., Bennett Wasserman, and said Aaron, and the sale by them of the return portion of said signed contract of the nontransferable reduced rate railroad ticket on the 25th day of July, 1904, at the city of St. Louis, Mo., for the price of...