No Honor Among Gamblers
A Seattle judge dismisses a lawsuit between two gambling house partners, ruling that the courts have no jurisdiction over crooked dealings.
Judge Humes ruled yesterday that courts were not intended to protect partners in a gambling game from cheating each other, and the suit of Warren Shaw against Matthew Ries was therefore dismissed. In his complaint, Shaw alleged that he and Ries formed a partnership to run a gambling house with a bankroll of $1,200. Shaw alleged that Ries allowed confederates to use 'bird's-eye' loaded dice, effectively defrauding him of $568.50. Shaw later tracked them to the Madrona saloon, owned by Ries' father, where he witnessed money being handed over. Judge Humes determined that such business arrangements are outside the protection of the law.
“Courts were not intended to protect partners in a gambling game from cheating each other.”
This decision reinforces the historical 'illegal' status of certain businesses in early Seattle, where the law refused to intervene in the internal disputes of criminal enterprises. It mirrors the era's complex, often hypocritical relationship with vice, where saloons and gambling dens were tolerated until they became a public nuisance.
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