# Telephone News System, Inc. v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 220 F. Supp. 621 (N.D. Ill. 1963)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/courtlistener-telephone-news-system-220-f-supp-621/

Three-judge district court decision of 14 August 1963 rejecting constitutional challenges to the Wire Act's cut-off provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1084(d), as applied to a Chicago telephone service that played recorded horse-racing information to callers.

Judge Julius J. Hoffman wrote for the three-judge court of Circuit Judge Hastings and District Judges Hoffman and Will. "Since 1956," the opinion says, the plaintiff "has operated a telephone service supplying certain horse racing information to anyone calling its telephone number," recorded several times a day from a sports printer leased from United Press International. On April 25, 1962 Assistant Attorney General Herbert J. Miller, Jr. wrote to Illinois Bell that the plaintiff's lines were being used to transmit gambling information in violation of federal law, and the company gave notice under section 1084(d).

In an earlier opinion in the case (210 F. Supp. 471), Judge Will had found that the plaintiff was using its telephones in violation of section 28-1(a)(10) of the Illinois Criminal Code of 1961, so that discontinuance was required, and had referred the constitutional questions to a three-judge court. That court rejected the constitutional challenges and upheld the discontinuance. Judge Will concurred, calling it "an exceedingly troublesome case." He was satisfied that the facilities were "used almost entirely by people engaged in illegal offtrack gambling on horse races," but questioned the withdrawal of a utility service on an officer's notice as "a new technique in criminal law enforcement."

The Supreme Court affirmed without opinion in 1964; that order is [filed separately](/items/courtlistener-telephone-news-system-376-us-782/). The middle sections of this long opinion were skimmed rather than read line by line.

## Sources

- CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1815433/telephone-news-system-inc-v-illinois-bell-telephone-co/