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39 Or. 581

Meyers v. Dillon

Oregon Supreme Court

Decided August 1, 1901

Oregon Supreme Court · decided 1901-08-01

<p>Gaming — Evidence of Ownership.</p> <p>1. Under Hill’s Ann. Laws, g 776, subd. 12, providing that it is a disputable presumption that a person is the owner of property from exercising acts of ownership over it or from common reputation of his ownership, evidence that defendant was commonly reputed to be the proprietor of a gambling game at which plaintiff claims to have lost money, is admissible in an action to recover such money.</p> <p>Effect in a Civil Action of Plea of Guilty of a Crime.</p> <p>2. A record of a j udgment of conviction in a criminal case based on a plea of guilty is competent evidence in a civil ease of the facts upon which it was rendered; as, where an action is brought under Hill’s Ann. Laws, g 3528, to recover money lost at a gambling game which defendant is alleged to have carried on as proprietor, the record of a conviction of conducting such game, entered on defendant’s plea of guilty, is competent, though not conclusive, as evidence of an admission as to the proprietorship.</p> <p>Gaming — Double Penalty — Form of Verdict.</p> <p>3. A verdict of the jury in an action brought under Hill’s Ann. Laws, g 3528, giving a person losing money at or on certain gambling games the right to recover double the amount actually lost, showing the amount actually lost and defendant’s liability, is in the nature of a special finding, and authorizes the court to render judgment for double the sum so found.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““It particularly refers to the unlawful gaming defined and punished by other sections 'and is, in effect, one of the penalties for the violation of the act.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Mozorosky v. Hurlburt

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Ab'firmed · Decided 1901-08-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently September 1963

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

201901191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Decided 9 December, 1901.

¶2On Rehearing.

Mr. Chief Justice Bean

¶3delivered the opinion.

¶4A contention is made that the record of the recorder’s *585court was incompetent because it stated that the defendant was convicted of gambling. The complaint charged him with conducting as owner a gambling game for money, and to this charge he entered a plea of guilty. The record of the plea, therefore, was competent evidence of an admission by him of a disputed fact in the present action, and its competency is not affected by an erroneous statement in entering the judgment.

¶5Again, it is insisted that .the court erred in stating to the jury the general provisions of the act of 1878 defining unlawful gaming, and the penalties for a violation thereof. The section of the statute under which the present action was instituted (Hill’s Ann. Laws, § 3528) is a part of the act referred to, and is intelligible only by reference to the other provisions. It particularly refers to the unlawful gaming defined and punished by other sections, and is, in effect, one of the penalties for the violation of the act. It creates a cause of action in favor of the loser of money at certain gambling games against the dealer or player winning the same, or the proprietor of such game, to recover double the amount lost. One of the issues in the case was whether defendant had violated the statute by conducting as owner or proprietor one of the prohibited games, and no recovery could be had unless the jury found that fact against him. It was therefore quite proper for the court to explain, as it did in a general way, the several provisions of the act, to give the jury, as it stated at the time, “a view of the law of these sections.”

¶6The former judgment will be adhered to.

¶7Aeeirmed on Rehearing.

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