Hamilton v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 34 F. Supp. 928 (N.D. Ohio 1940)

Judge Wilkin dissolved a preliminary injunction of February 26, 1940 that had stopped Western Union from discontinuing leased wires to the plaintiff, a distributor of news at Youngstown, Ohio (No. 20221). The United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio appeared as amicus curiae. The company’s reason for discontinuing the service was that the plaintiff was using it for an illegal purpose.

The affidavits of the company and the United States Attorney, as the court summarizes them, “tend to show” that the plaintiff “was formerly connected with the Annenberg associations and affiliates, which were engaged in obtaining information from race tracks and distributing it to bookmakers and gambling houses throughout the country”; that “one of the Annenberg agencies was known as Nationwide News Service, Inc.,” whose Youngstown agency the plaintiff had managed; that the United States Attorney at Chicago warned the telegraph and telephone companies; that the Annenberg organizations sued those companies in Chicago and were refused a preliminary injunction; and that “before final hearing in that suit, the attorneys for the Annenberg organizations withdrew their complaints and agreed to close and terminate the entire business.” They further tend to show “a nationwide plan” for continuing “essentially the same service.”

The court said it was “not required, in connection with this issue, to determine the truth or falsity of the allegations contained in the affidavits,” and held that a court of equity “will not restrain the discontinuance of service by a utility if the character of the use of the service is such as to justify an honest doubt as to its legality.” The Chicago suit it relies on, Nationwide News Service, Inc. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., Illinois Bell Telephone Co. and Western Union, has no published opinion and is not filed here.