Case Name: LEE ON et al., Appellants, v. JAMES LONG, Individually and as Sheriff, etc., et al., Respondents
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1951-06-29
Citations: 37 Cal. 2d 499
Docket Number: S. F. No. 18026
Parties: LEE ON et al., Appellants, v. JAMES LONG, Individually and as Sheriff, etc., et al., Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 37
Pages: 499–509

Head Matter:
[S. F. No. 18026.
In Bank.
June 29, 1951.]
LEE ON et al., Appellants, v. JAMES LONG, Individually and as Sheriff, etc., et al., Respondents.
Deasy & Dodge and Philip L. Evans for Appellants.
Fred N. Howser and Edmund G. Brown, Attorneys General, Clarence A. Linn, Deputy Attorney General, Francis W. Collins, District Attorney (Contra Costa), and Thomas F. McBride, Deputy District Attorney, for Respondents.
J. F. Coakley, District Attorney (Alameda), R. Robert Hunter, Assistant District Attorney, Richard H. Klippert, Deputy District Attorney, William E. Simpson, District Attorney (Los Angeles), J. Francis O’Shea, District Attorney (Sacramento), J. D. Keller, District Attorney (San Diego), Thomas C. Lynch, District Attorney (San Francisco), Chester Watson, District Attorney (San Joaquin), Louis De Matteis, District Attorney (San Mateo), and N. J. Menard, District Attorney (Santa Clara), as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents.

Opinion:
SPENCE, J.
The question to be determined is whether the trial court erred in its judgment denying plaintiffs the. right to recover money seized while in use in gambling games, which games were being conducted in violation of law. Consistent with the settled principle that the courts will not lend assistance to persons whose claim for relief rests on an illegal transaction, it is our conclusion that plaintiffs cannot prevail.
In August, 1945, plaintiffs were arrested in a gambling raid made on certain premises in El Cerrito. Thereafter plaintiffs were charged with the violation of section 330 of the Penal Code (gaming); and upon arraignment, they pleaded guilty to the charges and paid the fines imposed.
In the course of the raid, the sheriff and his deputies seized from the tables at which plaintiffs were seated certain dice, dominoes, playing cards, lottery tickets, and money in the amount of $6,248.35. The county of Contra Costa filed a petition in the superior court praying for an order authorizing destruction of the gambling paraphernalia and forfeiture of the money. Plaintiffs in turn brought suit against the sheriff, Long, and the district attorney, Collins, for the return of the money. The two cases were tried upon the same evidence. The court ordered confiscation of the gambling paraphernalia but with respect to the money, it denied both the county's petition for forfeiture and also plaintiffs' prayer for its return.
In the disposition of plaintiffs' action, the trial court found, in accord with the undisputed testimony of the sheriff, defendant Long, that the money was seized from gambling tables where it was "in use in gambling games"; that plaintiffs had pleaded guilty to the violation of section 330 of the Penal Code and each had paid a fine of $250; that the money had been deposited by defendant Long with the county treasurer, and that plaintiffs had failed to file a claim "against defendants in their official capacity . . . pursuant to the requirements of Section 29704 of the Government Code." Upon these findings, the court concluded that plaintiffs' claim was barred by their failure to comply with said section 29704; that the money "at the time of [its] seizure" was being "used in violation of the [state] gaming laws"; and that "the law will not lend its support to a claim founded on its own violation." Prom the adverse judgment accordingly entered, plaintiffs have appealed.
The principal question on this appeal, the answer to which appears to be determinative, is whether plaintiffs, despite their claim of ownership and right to possession of the money in question, are nevertheless barred from its recovery by the trial court's findings that the money was "at the time of its seizure in use in gambling games," which games were being conducted in violation of law. Plaintiffs do not contest the propriety of these findings, but they argue that the trial court's refusal to return the money to them is contrary to the statu tory provisions limiting the scope of forfeitures. To this point, plaintiffs cite section 2604 of the Penal Code, declaring that "No conviction of any person for a crime works any, forfeiture of any property, except in cases in which a forfeiture is expressly imposed by law." The Legislature has provided in two instances for the forfeiture of money used in gambling, neither of which is applicable here: Penal Code, § 335a, having to do with gambling devices other than those here involved; and section 325, dealing with lottery activities, as to which the seized money was in nowise connected under the evidence or the court's findings. Consistent with the general rule governing the construction of statutes involving forfeitures (12 Cal.Jur. § 3, pp. 633-634), the trial court properly recognized the limits of its express statutory authority and denied the county's petition for forfeiture "as far as the money [was] concerned." (Cf. Chapman v. Aggeler, 47 Cal.App.2d 848, 860-861 [119 P.2d 204].) However, the present case on appeal does not concern the law of forfeitures, but rather relates to the question of whether plaintiffs, admittedly engaged in illegal gambling activities at the time of the raid and their arrest, are in a position to assert their ownership and right to possession of the money that was then in actual use in such activities, and to enlist the aid of the court in seeking to have it restored to them.
" No principle of law is better settled than that a party to an illegal contract cannot come into a court of law and ask to have his illegal objects carried out; nor can he set up a case in which he must necessarily disclose an illegal purpose as the groundwork of his claim." (17 C.J.S. § 272, p. 656.) Nor is this established rule limited in its application to parties to the illegal transaction as distinguished from an attempt to set up a claim against a third party based on the law's violation. (Schur v. Johnson, 2 Cal.App.2d 680, 683 [38 P.2d 844]; Asher v. Johnson, 26 Cal.App.2d 403, 413 [79 P.2d 457].) As was said in the Schnr case at pages 683-684, "the test of its [the rule's] application is whether the plaintiff can establish his' ease otherwise than through the medium of an illegal transaction to which he himself is a party." Likewise illustrative of the courts' attitude towards the enforcement of a demand "connected with an illegal transaction" is the statement in the Asher case at page 416: "If the plaintiff cannot open his case without showing that he has broken the law, the court will not assist him, whatever his claim of justice may be upon the defendant." In such cases, the illegal nature of the transaction creates a "disability in [the] plaintiff." (17 C.J.S. § 272, p. 659.)
Here it is manifest that plaintiffs could not, and did not prove their right to possession of the seized money without disclosing that it was in use in their illegal gambling activities at the time of the raid and their arrest in the gambling establishment. Moreover, plaintiffs pleaded guilty to the violation of the gaming law as charged following their arrest and paid the fines imposed. . Shall the courts then lend their aid to enable persons such as plaintiffs, who have committed a criminal offense, to recover the money which was in actual use in the perpetration thereof? Such question must be answered in the negative under the principles enunciated in Schur v. Johnson, supra, 2 Cal.App.2d 680, and Asher v. Johnson, supra, 26 Cal.App.2d 403, where the operators of illegal tango establishments sought to recover sales taxes which they paid to the state under protest that such levies had been improperly made on their gambling games. In the last cited cases, plaintiffs were denied recovery on the ground that they had to rely on their unlawful business to establish their right to recover the money wrongfully collected. In so holding, the court in the Asher case pertinently said at page 408: "We cannot afford to temporize on principles which vitally affect the public welfare." As involving fundamentally similar legal considerations, the court there cited and quoted at length (26 Cal.App.2d 410-411) from the leading case of Dorrell v. Clark, 90 Mont. 585 [4 P.2d 712, 79 A.L.R. 1000] holding that the owner or possessor of a slot machine, which is lawfully seized by a sheriff or a police officer, is not entitled to the return of the money found therein. The same general reasoning has been followed by courts in other jurisdictions in refusing to restore to alleged owners money earmarked or segregated as part of gambling operations and lawfully seized along with gambling paraphernalia in the course of a gambling raid. (Hofferman v. Simmons, 290 N.Y. 449 [49 N.E.2d 523, 527]; Germania Club v. City of Chicago, 332 Ill.App. 112 [74 N.E.2d 29, 30]; State v. McNichols, 63 Idaho 100 [117 P.2d 468, 469-470]; State v. Johnson, 52 N.M. 229 [195 P.2d 1017, 1020]; see, also, Fairmount Engine Co. v. Montgomery Co., 135 Pa.Super. 367 [5 A.2d 419, 420-421]; Krug v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 3 N.J.Super. 22 [65 A.2d 542, 544].)
Equally applicable here as in the Asher case is the fundamental legal principle of the Dorrell decision in precluding plaintiffs, "admitting the violation of the law," which they must disclose as "the groundwork of [their] claim," from recovery of the money which was in actual use in their illegal gambling activities. (Dorrell v. Clark, supra, 90 Mont. 585 [4 P.2d 712, 714].) It is not a question of the ultimate disposition of the seized money, but rather application of a "salutary rule invoked to uphold law and order." (Asher v. Johnson, supra, 26 Cal.App.2d 403, 414.) This principle of the law, grounded on public policy, is not affected by the independent considerations entering into the statutory declaration limiting forfeitures to those "expressly imposed by law." (Pen. Code, § 2604.-) As pointed out in the Dorrell ease (4 P.2d 713) in an action for conversion, "the plaintiff must recover, if at all, upon the strength of his own title and not upon the weakness of his adversary . . ." (See, also, 22 Cal.Jur. § 42, p. 167.) Under these circumstances, the trial court did not undertake to declare a forfeiture but properly held that plaintiffs were not entitled to prevail in their suit for recovery of the seized gambling funds. (See Dorrell v. Clark, supra, 90 Mont. 585 [4 P.2d 712, 714].)
In view of the conclusion reached on the question heretofore discussed, it is unnecessary to determine whether plaintiffs would be barred in any event because of their failure to present a claim in the manner provided in section 29704 of the Government Code (formerly Pol. Code, § 4075).
The judgment is affirmed.
Gibson, C. J., Shenk, J., and Edmonds, J., concurred.