Court Opinion

ID: 9600448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:27:08.37244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:21.138232
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in much of the reasoning of the court, if we look at the problem in a purely legalistic way. But for me the most important considerations are not the splits in the circuits or the ambiguities inherit in the existing law on forum selection clauses, but rather the fact that the gambling contract entered into between the parties here is likely illegal in Ohio but completely legal in Gibraltar. If we read Ohio law as controlling the contract in question, the parties probably are guilty of a crime under Ohio law, the contract is void, and both parties could be extradited and prosecuted together in an Ohio criminal court.1
Surely the parties assumed that if the plaintiff won at gambling, the plaintiff would get some money and if the plaintiff lost, the winner and the house would split the winnings. So when the plaintiff comes into court and says he wants money in an Ohio court under what he regards as an Ohio contract, but does not want the Ohio court to say that under the governing Ohio law the gambling contract is illegal, the plaintiff is a bit inconsistent in his logic, to say the least.
This illegality factor is particularly salient because the defendant now reports that it has completely stopped carrying on its online gambling business in Ohio and in the United States because Congress recently passed a criminal statute outlawing this kind of internet gambling. See Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006, 31 U.S.C. §§ 5361-5367 (effective October 13, 2006).
Obviously, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant’s employees want to go to jail in Ohio. On a principle analogous to the rule of lenity I would interpret the forum selection clause as controlled by English law which, so far as I can tell, is the only way to keep the contract from being void and subject to criminal penalties.2 It also reduces the risk that the plaintiff and others will go to jail under Ohio law or even under the Federal Wire Act or RICO.3
*835Now, of course, the parties have not raised this point. Neither wants to admit the existence of any criminal law problem with their activities. But sometimes courts have to raise embarrassing questions that both parties to litigation had rather we overlooked.

. See Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2915.02(A) (2003) (prohibiting any person from engaging in "conduct that facilitates any game of chance conducted for profit” or "engag[ing] in betting or in playing any scheme or game of chance as a substantial source of income or livelihood”); Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2915.01(D) (2003) (defining poker as a game of chance) (unrelated section of statute held unconstitutional by Pickaway Cty. Skilled Gaming, L.L.C. v. Cordray, No. 08AP-1032, 2009 WL 2101479 (Ohio Ct.App. Jul. 16, 2009)); Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 3763.01 (2003) (gaming contracts void).

. "The rule of lenity requires ambiguous criminal laws to be interpreted in favor of the defendants subjected to them. This venerable rule not only vindicates the fundamental fairness principle that no citizen should be held accountable for a violation of a statute whose commands are uncertain, or subjected to punishment that is not clearly prescribed. It also places the weight of inertia upon the party that can best induce Congress to speak more clearly and keeps courts from making criminal law in Congress’s stead.” U.S. v. Santos, - U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 2020, 2025, 170 L.Ed.2d 912 (2008) (internal citations omitted).

. See 18 U.S.C. § 1084 (2000) (unlawful to "use a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate and foreign commerce of bets and wagers on sporting events and contests, and for the transmission of a *835wire communication which entitled the recipient to receive money and credit as a result of bets and wagers.”); 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) (2000) ("It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.”)