Vincent v. Taylor
Vincent v. Taylor
Opinion of the Court
The cause was tried to a jury and a verdict returned for the defendant in error against plaintiff in error and three others, James Casey, Michael Casey and Barney Casey. A motion was made for a new trial by all the defendants in the court of common pleas which was overruled and judgment rendered on the verdict. Thereupon a bill of exceptions was taken which embodied all the evidence and the charge of the court. The cause was then taken to the circuit court on error and the judgment reversed as to the three Casey’s on the ground that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment
The petition as amended reads as follows:
The plaintiff says, that on or about November 23, A. D. 1884, she was married to one George W. Taylor, with whom she has ever since lived, and upon whom she was wholly dependent for support and maintenance.
That the said defendants from the first day of December, A. D. 1887, continuously to and including the twelfth day of August A. D. 1888, were the keepers of a certain place in the town of Washington, Payette county, ■ Ohio, used by them for gambling purposes, and in which place during the days and times aforesaid they conducted and allowed various schemes of gambling in which schemes of gambling the said defendants had an interest.
That during the days and times aforesaid, the said George W. Taylor on said schemes of. gambling, in said place so kept by defendants and in which schemes of gambling the said defendants were interested, expended and paid the sum of two
Wherefore plaintiff prays for a judgment against said defendants for the sum of seven hundred dollars, the amount so expended and her damages aforesaid.
There are two sections of our statutes under which money lost at gambling, or expended on account of gambling may be recovered — sections 4270 and 4271. The former section is in the following terms:
“If any person, by playing at any game, or by means of any bet or wager, loses to any other person any sum of money or other thing of value, and pays or delivers the same, or any part thereof, to the winner, the person who so loses and pays, or delivers may, at any time within six months next after such loss and payment or delivery, sue for and recover the money or thing of value so lost and paid or delivered, or any part thereof, from the winner thereof, with costs of suit, by civil action founded on this chapter, before any court of competent jurisdiction.” The latter section reads as follows: “A person who expends any money or thing of value, or incurs any obhgation for the purchase of or to procure any lottery or policy ticket, hazard, or chance, or any interest therein, in or on account of any lottery, policy, or scheme of chance, or in or on account of any game of faro, pool or combination, keno, or scheme of gambling, and any person dependent in any degree for support upon, or entitled to the earnings of such*313 person, and any citizen for the use of the person so interested, may sue for and recover, from the person receiving such money, thing of value or obligation, the amount thereof, together with exemplary damages, which in no case shall be less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars, and may join as defendants in such suit all persons having any interest, direct or contingent, in such lottery, policy, or scheme of .chance, or the possible profits thereof, as backers, venders, owners, or otherwise.”
The petition does not state that the husband of the defendant in error played any game or made any bet or wager with the plaintiff in error and the Casey’s or either of them. The operation of section 4270, Revised Statutes, is confined to instances where, by playing some game or by some bet or wager, one person has won of another, money or other thing of value, and the action it authorizes is to be directed against the winner. Further yet, a wife is not by the terms of that section given a right of action at all. Her right to maintain an action for money, etc., lost in the manner mentioned in that section depends upon the provisions of a succeeding . section 4273, Revised Statutes, and did not accrue to her until the conditions prescribed by the latter section had happened. The plaintiff below did not attempt in her petition to show that such conditions had occurred. It seems to us, therefore, that the petition did not state a cause of action that fell within the provisions of section 4270, Revised Statutes.
Section 4271, Revised Statutes, was enacted long after section 4270 had been in force, and it seems clear that its chief object was to provide a remedy for other instances of money lost at gaming than
The averments of the petition we think brought the transaction complained of within both the letter and the spirit of section 4271, Revised Statutes before recited. The petition was, therefore, sufficient to show a cause of action in her and against the defendants below.
A motion was made to require the petition to be made more definite and certain (among other things) in that it state “the nature and kind or
The court of common pleas overruled the motion.
This was not error. The defendants were sufficiently apprised of the nature of the evidence that would be introduced to support the petition. The husband may have played at one scheme one day and another scheme another day, or he may have played at different schemes the same. day. The period named in the petition during which he played extended over many months, and the difficulty the wife would encounter specifying the different g-ames or schemes in operation from time to time is apparent. If gambling schemes were conducted by the defendants below on premises occupied by them, of course the kind and character of such games were better known to them than to the wife, and we think under the circumstances an averment in the terms employed in the petition should be regarded as sufficiently definite that the defendant could not have been injured by its generality.
The remaining question and really the only one about which much difference of opinion could arise relates to the sufficiency of the evidence to bring the gambling transaction in question within the scope of section 4271, Revised Statutes. The evidence must show that the husband of the plaintiff below expended and the plaintiff in error received money on account of “a scheme of gambling,” or no recovery could be bad under this section.
The greater part of the evidence produced at the trial was introduced either to show that gambling was being conducted in the room by the plaintiff in error, Vincent, or the sums of money lost there by the husband of Mrs. Taylor.
However we are not dealing with him as a player, but with him as one who furnished the means of playing. These “chips” were sold in “stacks,” and according to the evidence of Mrs.Taylor’s husband,
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.