Blackham v. Gresham

• Decision Date: 04 June 1883
• Citation: 16 F. 609
• Parties: BLACKHAM v. GRESHAM and others.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

16 F. 609

BLACKHAM v. GRESHAM and others.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

June 4, 1883

Isaac Angel, for plaintiff.

Elihu Root, U.S. Atty., for defendant.

WALLACE J.

The plaintiff has moved for a preliminary injunction in her suit brought to restrain the defendants from proceeding to make searches and seizures under sections 4026 and 3990 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. These sections authorize the postmaster general to empower any special agent or other officer of his department to make searches for mailable matter transported in violation of law, not being in a dwelling-house; and authorize any special agent, collector or other customs officer, or United States marshal or his deputy, to seize all letters and bags, packets, or parcels containing letters which are being carried contrary to law on board any vessel, or on any post-route, and convey the same to the nearest post-office, or, under the direction of the postmaster general or secretary of the treasury, to detain them until two months after the final determination of all suits and proceedings which may, at any time within six months after such seizure, be brought against any person for sending or carrying such letters.

The plaintiff is the proprietor of Boyd's City Dispatch, and employs about fifty carriers, who make collections and deliveries daily of letters in the city of New York, for the different persons who employ the plaintiff for the carrying and delivery of letters. These carriers make regular trips and at stated periods, over the letter-carrier routes in New York city established by the postmaster general. The plaintiff sells stamps to his customers, which the latter affix to their letters, and thereupon the letters are collected and delivered in substantially the same manner as the regular mailable matter of the post-office department. The searches and seizures which are apprehended by the plaintiff, and which she seeks to enjoin, relate to the letters thus conveyed by the plaintiff, the defendants being the postmaster general and other officers acting, or authorized to act, under the sections referred to.

It is contended for the plaintiff that her business is lawful, and that she does not transport mailable matter in violation of law, because letter-carriers routes within cities are not post-routes within the meaning of the statutes of the United States. The case turns, as to this contention, upon the meaning of section 3982 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which enacts as follows:

'No person shall establish any private express for the conveyance of letters or packets, or in any manner cause or provide for the conveyance of the same, by regular trips or at stated periods, over any post-route which is or may be established by law, or from any city, town, or place to any other city, town, or place between which the mail is regularly carried.'

This enactment is a reproduction in the general revision of the statutes of section 228 of the act of March 3, 1872.

A brief reference to pre-existing legislation denotes quite unmistakably that letter-carrier routes were post-routes within the contemplation of that section. By the act of March 3, 1851, Sec. 10, (9 St.at Large, 591,) the postmaster general was empowered to establish post-routes within cities and towns for the receiving, conveying, and delivering of letters by carriers to be appointed by him. By the act of March 2, 1861, Sec. 4, (12 St.at Large, 205,) it was declared that the provisions of section 3 of the act of March 2, 1827 should be applicable to all post-routes which have been,...