FILM RIGHTS AVAILABLE
FILM RIGHTS AVAILABLE
Leonarde Keeler, co -inventor of the lie detector, who tested Touhy
Leonarde Keeler testing his lie-detector on a former witness for the prosecution at the trial of Bruno Hauptmann in 1937
John Factor 1892-1984
http://www.starsofhf.com/custom.html
John Factor 1892-1984
Half brother of famed cosmetics founder Max Factor, he was born the youngest of ten children. Factor
was taken to Lodz, Poland before he was a year old and lived there until he was eleven. (He later
claimed to have been born in England in order to obtain a Canadian passport.) In the early 1900’s, the
family moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he worked as a shoe shine boy, and later onto Chicago where
he sold newspapers. In 1911 Factor married Bessie Schatz and they had a son they named Jerome –
Jerome grew up to work in the insurance business and settled in Chicago. Factor and Schatz were
divorced in 1918 and he married Helen Stoddard in 1921 – divorcing her in 1923. He then married Rella
Cohen in 1925. During the 1920’s, Factor, aka “Jake the Barber,” went into business with gangsters
Arnold Rothstein and Al Capone. He ran a stock scam in England and swindled nearly $8 million out of
investors and members of the royal family. He also broke the bank at Monte Carlo by rigging the tables.
Factor eventually wound up back in Chicago fighting extradition all the way to the United States Supreme
Court, but his case was weak and deportation loomed on the horizon. In August of 1933, Factor paid off
members of Roger Touhy’s gang of mobsters to kidnap him and went on to collect $70,000 tax-free
ransom for his own return. When Factor was returned, he named Roger Touhy as his abductor. Touhy
went on trial in November of 1933 and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. It was later stated in court
that “
Roger Touhy did not kidnap John Factor and infact had no part in the alleged kidnapping of John
Factor
.” Factor later got involved in questionable oil leases in Arkansas and in 1942 he and others were
indicted by an Iowa grand jury for a whisky swindle that took $459,000 from 300 victims in twelve
states. In 1945 Factor found himself in prison for mail fraud, a sentence that kept him behind bars for
ten years. Following his release he went on to own the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, running
it for the mob. On January 10, 1958, Moe Dalitz, Allard Roen and their Desert Inn associates took over
the Stardust with the owner listed as Rella Factor, for $4.3 million. When Factor died in 1984, he was a
multi-millionarie, having amassed a fortune in real estate in California. His funeral was attended by the
likes of Tom Bradley – Los Angeles’ Mayor and Edmund “Pat” Brown – former Governor of California. In
1958, the Stardust hotel had 1065 rooms and had Las Vegas’ only first run drive-in theater located at the
rear of the resort. The hotel now boasts 1,500 rooms and suites and houses restaurants, shops,
showrooms and a 2.5 acre outdoor recreational complex with swimming pools and tropical gardens. At a
recent Canadian auction Factor’s 1930 Duesenberg sold for $880,000.
Jake the Barber from the website; http://www.myfamilybusiness.org/familytrees/factor/johnjacobfactor_documents.htm
393 F.2d 141
John FACTOR, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CARSON, PIRIE SCOTT & COMPANY, Kroch's & Brentano's, Inc., The Fair,
Illinois corporations, and Ray Brennan, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 16000.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
March 13, 1968.
Rehearing Denied May 10, 1968, en banc.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Keith F. Bode, Robert E. Pfaff, Philip W. Tone, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant, Raymond, Mayer, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
Howard P. Robinson, George W. McBurney, Arthur F. Staubitz, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Carson, Pirie Scott & Co.; Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
Narcisse A. Brown, William F. McNally, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, The Fair.
Eloise Johnstone, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Ray Brennan.
Jack Edward Dwork, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Kroch's & Brentano's, Inc.
Before SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge, KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge, and SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.
SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge.
1
John Factor, plaintiff, a resident of California, has appealed from a judgment of the district court dismissing, on the authority of an Illinois statute of limitations,1 his suit for libel and invasion of privacy, refiled in 1965.
2
The litigation is a result of the publication and sale of a book entitled "The Stolen Years" which plaintiff's counsel describe as a partially ghost-written autobiography of one Roger Touhy. Plaintiff maintains that the book charges him with perpetrating "one of the biggest swindles of its kind in history", and that, in addition, its principal theme is that plaintiff was guilty of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice, in connection with the conviction of Touhy for the kidnaping of plaintiff in the 1930's. Defendants moved to dismiss the suit on a number of grounds, including the statute of limitations.
3
An earlier suit on the same grounds as the instant action had been filed by plaintiff in the court below in December 1959.2 The named defendants were and are citizens of Illinois although plaintiff alleged he was then a British subject. Touhy was a defendant in the 1959 case until his death. In that case jurisdiction was based on 28 U.S.C.A. § 1332(a) (2), which confers jurisdiction upon district courts in civil actions between citizens of a state and citizens or subjects of a foreign state.
4
When defendants moved to dismiss the 1959 action for lack of jurisdiction, contending that plaintiff, an alien, was not a citizen of Great Britain, the district court denied the motion. 230 F.Supp. 906 (Dec. 30, 1963). Following a subsequent trial on the issue of jurisdiction, the district court on December 23, 1964 dismissed the 1959 case on the ground that plaintiff failed to sustain his burden of proof of the existence of jurisdictional facts. The court's view of the evidence was that it tended to prove that plaintiff was born in Russian Poland rather than in Great Britain, and that, under the court's interpretation of Russian law, plaintiff was, at the time of filing of that action, a stateless person and so not able to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction under the alienage provision. See 238 F. Supp. 630. The court stated the action was dismissed with prejudice.3
5
On September 16, 1965, plaintiff refiled his suit which is the instant action, 65 C 1558. It is undisputed that plaintiff had become an American citizen in 1963 and was a resident of California. His counsel now insist that the jurisdictional defect which caused the dismissal of the 1959 action now constitutes no impediment to the 1965 action and that, in fact, federal jurisdiction exists in this action on the basis of diversity of citizenship.
6
It is undisputed that the 1959 action had been commenced within the one-year limitation period prescribed by Illinois law for actions to recover damages for libel and for the invasion of a right of privacy. Plaintiff's counsel argue that, when that action was nonsuited, the right to refile was governed by § 24a of the Illinois Limitations Act, which provides:
7
§ 24a In any of the actions specified in any of the sections of this act or any other act or in any contract where the time of commencement of any action is limited, if judgment shall be given for the plaintiff, and the same be reversed upon appeal; or if a verdict pass for the plaintiff, and, upon matter alleged in arrest of judgment, the judgment be given against the plaintiff; or, if the plaintiff has heretofore been nonsuited or shall be nonsuited then, if the time limited for bringing such action shall have expired during the pendency of such suit, the plaintiff, his or her heirs, executors, or administrators, as the case shall require, may commence a new action within one year after such judgment reversed or given against the plaintiff, and not after.
8
Thus plaintiff contends that the one-year limitation period for the libel suit ended during the pendency of the 1959 action, that the dismissal of that action for lack of jurisdiction constituted a "nonsuit" under § 24a,4 and that the case at bar had been filed within the one-year period after dismissal of the 1959 action. Plaintiff insists he meets every requirement expressed in § 24a. However the district court held that plaintiff's action would be barred by the limitations unless he could show that he had acted in good faith in the 1959 action, which meant, according to that court, that plaintiff must have believed, in good faith, that he was born in Great Britain, when he prosecuted that action.
9
The court then determined the "good faith" issue against plaintiff, on the basis of the trial on the issue of jurisdiction of the 1959 action, and dismissed the 1965 action. However, on plaintiff's motion to vacate that dismissal, the court consented to receive evidence and on May 27, 1966 did hold a hearing, but, over plaintiff's objection, imposed upon him the burden of disproving defendants' charges of bad faith in connection with the 1959 action. The court received the oral testimony of witnesses in court, as well as certain depositions and a number of exhibits produced by plaintiff, all of which we condense as follows:
10
Plaintiff's sister, Dena Lupu, a housewife, aged 76 years, living in Los Angeles, California, by deposition, testified her mother's name was Leah Factor and her father's name was Abraham Joseph Factor, both deceased; that she was born in Lodz, Russia-Poland, that she and plaintiff, her brother, came from there to the United States with their parents; that plaintiff when he came to the United States, spoke Jewish; that he was about two years younger than she; that at their home her parents told her that her brother John was born in England; that they never told her John was born any other place than England.
11
Ted Factor, plaintiff's nephew, testified by deposition that in 1924 or 1925 in his parents' home in Chicago, when he was about nine or ten years old, his father who was about to go on a visit to Europe told him he was going to visit a brother in Hull, England, and that Ted's father stated Hull was the birthplace of John Factor, plaintiff here.
12
Ted Factor also recalled that other members of the family gave him the same information on other occasions, but that neither his father nor his uncle (plaintiff here) had ever told him the latter was born any place other than Hull, England.
13
Monte Factor, by deposition, testified that he is a nephew of plaintiff and also a son of Nathan Factor; that in his parents' home in St. Louis, prior to 1924 and in Chicago, and Oakland and Los Angeles, California, in 1924 and 1925, he heard both of his parents state that his uncle, John Factor, was born in England. He never heard his parents say that John was born at any other place.
14
Jerome Factor testified that he is plaintiff's son, that his parents were divorced about 1917, and that he has had frequent contacts over the years with plaintiff; that between 1930 and 1933 he and plaintiff were looking through a box and came upon plaintiff's British passport, whereupon plaintiff said that he was a British subject and was born in Hull, England. Further, Jerome testified that about 1924 he had a conversation with his uncle, Nathan Factor, in his St. Louis home in the presence of the latter's wife, Rose, and their sons, Ted and Monte, when Nathan Factor stated that plaintiff had been born in Hull, England, and he was the only member of the Factor family born any place other than Russia-Poland; that plaintiff's father and mother had been in Hull at the time of plaintiff's birth and that after plaintiff's birth plaintiff had been taken back to Poland
15
Jerome also recalled that about 1926 he talked with plaintiff's sister, "Aunt Gussie", at her store on Roosevelt Road in Chicago, when she stated that plaintiff was born in England.
16
Retired Chicago attorney George Gale Gilbert, Jr., testified he met plaintiff in 1928 when he came to Gilbert for the purpose of making a will. Under Gilbert's questions, indicating the importance of the information he sought, plaintiff informed him that he was a British subject and that he was born in Hull, England. He produced a British passport which indicated that he had obtained it by representing that he was born in Hull, England.
17
Mr. Gilbert testified that he represented plaintiff in the federal district court in Chicago in the case of Faber, et al., v. Foreman Trust and Savings Bank, No. 10538, in the course of which he made an investigation concerning plaintiff's place of birth. This investigation included a discussion with plaintiff, three of his brothers, an examination of immigration records, and a further interview with a brother and with plaintiff. Gilbert named several of these relatives. Also in 1932 he interviewed plaintiff's brother, Max Factor, who was deceased at the time Mr. Gilbert testified, and from Max he got the family history including the fact that plaintiff was born in Hull, England, of a rabbi father and his wife, while sojourning there, the details of which were set forth in Max's affidavit, hereinafter described.
18
John Factor, who was present at this interview, told Gilbert that he always believed that he had been born in Hull, England, that it was the family tradition in relation to his birth that he had heard several times. Rella Factor, wife of plaintiff, was in the room during the conversation.
19
Mr. Gilbert further testified that he recognized the signature "Max Factor" on the affidavit dated February 26, 1932, marked plaintiff's exhibit 1 and that it was so signed in his presence and that he (the witness) notarized it and also was familiar with its contents.
20
Mr. Gilbert also testified that he prepared an affidavit (plaintiff's exhibit 2), dated March 8, 1932 which was executed by Max Factor following an interview with him in Gilbert's office. Gilbert had interviewed Max Factor in the presence of John Factor and a secretary, during which the place of birth of plaintiff was discussed.
21
Gilbert further testified that Max told him again in greater detail of the family history of the birth of John in Hull, England, that he made a memorandum thereof, and that the affidavit contains the substance of what Max told him.
22
The witness [Gilbert] added that plaintiff looked over the affidavit and said something like "that is what I always thought".
23
So during 1932 the persons interviewed included John Factor, Max Factor, Daniel Factor and Nathan Factor. On these occasions both Nathan and Daniel also executed sworn affidavits. These affiants in detail stated that their father and mother, in 1892, left the home in Lodz, Poland, for a trip through Europe, in the latter part of that year returning to Lodz with a newborn child called John Factor, who was born in Hull, England. Neither Daniel nor Nathan was alive at the time Gilbert testified.
24
Plaintiff's testimony at the hearings in the 1959 and 1965 actions included the following:
25
He is the son of Abraham Joseph Factor, a rabbi, and Leah Factor, and spent his childhood in or near Lodz, Russian Poland; that he, his parents and sister Dena emigrated to the United States in 1905 or 1906. Until 1918 or 1919 he had assumed, without being told, that like his brothers and sisters, he had been born in or around Lodz.
26
In 1917 he made application to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, stating in the application that he was born in Russia; that shortly thereafter he informed his parents about the naturalization application and the statement therein regarding his place of birth; that then for the first time his parents informed him that the information he used on the application was incorrect, that he had been born in Hull, England, while the parents were on a visit there. As a result, plaintiff stated he took no further action with respect to his application for citizenship; that since this conversation he has continuously believed in good faith that he was a citizen of Great Britain by reason of birth there; that this belief was based, not only upon the aforementioned conversation with his parents, but upon later conversations with his parents, older half-brothers Max and Daniel, and his elder brother Nathan; that in all conversations with his father and mother they always stated that he was born in Hull, England. That all of his immediate family, except his brother Frank Factor, and his sister Dena Lupu, were deceased at the times of the hearings; that Frank, about five years older than he, was very ill.
27
That in the 1920's he made an investigation concerning his birthplace, asking a brother Bernard, living in Hull, England, to attempt to find proof of where plaintiff was born, and that in 1928 Bernard sent him a letter to the effect that "Enclosed you will find this document which I received from Mr. Schultz. He was at your circumcision."; that the enclosure [plaintiff's exhibit 9] is an affidavit of Solomon Schultz, dated March 23, 1928, at Kingston-upon-Hull, England.
28
Plaintiff testified that the customs of the orthodox Jewish faith require that infant boys be circumcised seven days after birth.5 Plaintiff testified further that:
29
During the course of his investigation in the 1920's regarding circumstances surrounding his birth, he obtained an affidavit [plaintiff's exhibit 10]6 from his mother, while has since been in his possession for many years.
30
Plaintiff identified his passport issued in Canada in 1923 [plaintiff's exhibit 14] which describes him as a British subject and states he was born in Hull, England. He also testified that when he filed, on October 21, 1959, his petition for naturalization as an American citizen, he stated therein that he was born in Hull, England. Records of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in case No. 217,599, corroborate plaintiff in that respect.
31
Defendants rested solely upon the transcript and exhibits introduced at the trial of the jurisdictional issue in the 1959 action.
32
Defendants, in their brief, cite, plaintiff's testimony in the 1959 case that in an affidavit he had stated his parents sojourned in England for two or three months and that his birth occurred on October 8, 1892 in Hull, England. Defendants also introduced in evidence the manifest sheet of the S.S. Haverford landing at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in March, 1906, on which plaintiff, his parents and sister came to this country, showing plaintiff's age as "eleven" and his nationality as Russian. That manifest sheet listed thirty names, with twenty-two printed column headings, on the first line of which opposite the first name in the column headed "Nationality" appeared the word "Russia". In that column underneath on each line of the sheet appeared a checkmark opposite each of twenty-nine names indicating each was from "Russia".
33
The record shows that plaintiff explained the discrepancy in his testimony about his age by admitting he "could not remember things that occurred that long ago" and that "these are discrepancies that are through the history of our family, because we had no birth certificates." Defense counsel attempted to impeach plaintiff as a witness by also calling his attention to statements about the date and place of his birth in connection with his application for a barber's license, his declaration of intent to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, the procuring of a Selective Service registration card in 1917, a birth certificate for his son Alvin, and his statement in 1925, when applying for a marriage license for his second marriage, that he was born in Chicago. In explanation, plaintiff testified frankly that he was in England when the son Alvin was born and did not furnish the information contained in the son's birth certificate; likewise that he listed Chicago as his birthplace because he feared that the revelation of his alien status might hinder or delay his marriage.
34
Defendants introduced their exhibit 14, an opinion by District Judge Woodward of the United States District Court in Chicago, dated March 5, 1932, in the case of Faber v. Foreman Trust & Savings Bank, No. 10538 in said court, denying a motion of John Factor and Rella Cohen Factor to reconsider their prior motion to dismiss the amended complaint in that action on jurisdictional grounds, which had been denied by Judge Wilkerson. Defendants' exhibit 15 is a verified motion by defendant Arthur L. Schwartz to dismiss the said amended complaint for want of jurisdiction, while defendants' exhibits 9 and 10 are copies of the decree and of findings of fact and conclusions of law entered in the Faber case September 29, 1932. There is a recital in defendants' exhibit 10 that John Factor is a citizen and resident of Illinois. Finally, defendants introduced documents showing the indictment, conviction and sentence in 1942-1943 of plaintiff for mail fraud.
35
Thereupon the trial court in the 1965 case on October 20, 1966 entered findings and concluded that the plaintiff had not shown good faith in claiming in the 1959 case that he was born in Hull, England, and held that his claims were barred by limitations. It dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Although estoppel had not been pleaded, the court said that plaintiff "should be estopped" from relying on § 24a.
36
1. The question of whether plaintiff was entitled to take advantage of the right, bestowed by § 24a, to refile his action, and, if so, under what conditions, was settled by the Illinois legislature when it enacted § 24a. The language of the act is precise. It is complete. These facts require the rejection of any additional requirement which a court might seek to impose. It was the duty of the district court to apply § 24a as enacted.
37
In Roth v. Northern Assurance Co., Ltd., 32 Ill.2d 40, 48, 203 N.E.2d 415, 419, 16 A.L.R.3d 442 (1964), the court said:
38
"* * * The plain purpose of section 24 is to facilitate the disposition of litigation upon the merits and to avoid its frustration upon grounds that are unrelated to the merits. No reason is suggested why this purpose is not just as applicable to a short contractual limitation as it is to the longer statutory period. In neither case is any injury inflicted upon the defendant, who must have knowledge of the claim asserted against it within the time provided by statute or contract, before the provision for the new action becomes operative. * * *" (Emphasis supplied.)
39
and at 49, 203 N.E.2d at 420, the court added:
40
"* * * `Statutes of limitation, like other statutes, must be construed in the light of their objectives. The basic policy of such statutes is to afford a defendant a fair opportunity to investigate the circumstances upon which liability against him is predicated while the facts are accessible. That purpose has been fully served here. As observed by Mr. Justice Holmes in New York Central & H. R. Railroad v. Kinney, 260 U.S. 340, 342, 43 S.Ct. 122, 67 L.Ed. 294, "Of course an argument can be made on the other side, but when a defendant has had notice from the beginning that the plaintiff sets up and is trying to enforce a claim against it because of specified conduct, the reasons for the statute of limitations do not exist, and we are of opinion that a liberal rule should be applied."' Geneva Construction Co. v. Martin Transfer and Storage Co., 4 Ill.2d 273, 289-290, 122 N.E.2d 540, 549."
41
In White v. Turner-Hudnut Co., 322 Ill. 133, 140, 152 N.E. 572 (1926), the court said:
42
"* * * Statutes of limitation are restrictive and will not be extended to cases other than those for which express provision is made. * * *"
43
The words of the statute of Illinois are unambiguous. However, in the case at bar, the district court in effect wrote into § 24a a limitation which the general assembly did not insert nor the Illinois Supreme Court has ever applied. The district court would withhold the benefit of the statute until plaintiff proved his good faith with respect to the allegations in the complaint which he had filed in the nonsuited action. We have been cited to no decision of any federal court or of any Illinois court which has superimposed this burden upon one who seeks to take advantage of § 24a. This is not surprising, because the right to plead the defense of limitation of an action has always been recognized by courts of law. Usually it is embodied in statutes, in which case the success of such defense depends upon the provisions of the statute itself, not to a judicial modification thereof. Section 24a is an additional statutory device, the use of which merely postpones the effectiveness of the intervening bar of a statute of limitations where a suit, filed seasonably, has been nonsuited. Where § 24a operates, it effects an extension of the time allowed for suing on the original cause of action. Therefore the new suit so filed is subject to defenses on the merits in the same way as was the first suit filed. We find no basis in law for holding that a plaintiff's reliance upon § 24a ipso facto creates an issue of his good faith in doing so. We shrink from the proposition that conformity to a state statute creates a presumption of bad faith.
44
There is no contention here, nor was there in the court below, that the equitable doctrine of laches bars plaintiff's action.
45
In Lamson v. Hutchings, 7 Cir., 118 F. 321 (1902),7 we discussed 2 Starr & Curtiss Ann. St., p. 2642, c. 83, par. 25, which was the forerunner of the present § 24a. In an earlier appeal8 this court had ruled that the case there involved was governed by the Illinois five-year statute of limitations. That suit was dismissed on February 4, 1897 and a new suit was commenced within one year thereafter. Par. 25 provided:
46
"In any of the actions specified in any of the sections of said act, * * * if the plaintiff be nonsuited, then, if the time limited for bringing such action shall have expired during the pendency of such suit, the said plaintiff, * * * may commence a new action within one year after such judgment * * * given against the plaintiff, and not after." At 323, this court said:
47
" * * * By that same token we think that this statute of Illinois, which seeks to relieve the diligent but mistaken claimant from the consequences of his mistake, should receive a like liberal interpretation in the interests of justice and of fair play. * * *" At 324, we continued:
48
"* * * The intent of the statute was that the time occupied in an unsuccessful litigation touching a demand — the statutory limitation expiring during the litigation — should not prove a bar, where the merits of the controversy had not been determined, but that a period of one year should be allowed after the expiration of the unsuccessful litigation to bring a proper action to enforce the demand; and this whether the unsuccessful litigation be at law or in equity. The legislature was not dealing with form merely, but with substance, to relieve from mistaken proceedings. * * *"
49
Accordingly this court affirmed the judgment against defendants entered by the district court.
50
It is significant that in the Lamson case, neither court nor counsel deemed worthy of mention the "good faith" of either litigant which, if it were relevant, could be injected to harass plaintiff in every case involving § 24a. We still believe that our views in Lamson are sound and that there can be no justification for the action of the district court in virtually amending § 24a by adding the words "good faith" and thus legislating a broad exception to § 24a. We think it significant that, likewise in Roth, ante, page 10, there is an absence of any inquiry into or judicial interest in plaintiff's good faith with respect to the filing of the prior action.
51
But on this point, defendants herein rely on Tidwell v. Smith, 57 Ill.App.2d 271, 273-274, 205 N.E.2d 484, 486 (2d Dist., 1965). However, in Tidwell the plaintiff attempted to use § 24a after his self-initiated delay, which the court held constituted a virtual abandonment of his cause of action, rather than for the purpose of affording a fair opportunity to try the case on the merits, which is unlike the situation in the case at bar.
52
In Sachs v. Ohio Nat. Life Ins. Co., 7 Cir., 131 F.2d 134 (1942), we emphasized the liberal construction to be given to § 24a. The opinion of this court shows that it was concerned with the question of whether the word "nonsuit" included "dismissal for want of jurisdiction of the amended and supplemental complaint filed in the former suit" and so was a "nonsuit" within the meaning of § 24a. No issue of good faith was before the court. Although, at 137, we said,
53
"The act is remedial, reflecting a legislative intent to protect the party who brings the action in good faith from complete loss of relief on the merits merely because of a procedural defect. * * *",
54
obviously the words "good faith" are obiter dictum.
55
2. The fundamental question now is whether there was in the evidence in the record before the district court a sufficient basis for a reasonable belief by plaintiff that he was born in Hull, England.
56
In brief, the Factor family in 1892 was living in Russia, but plaintiff's birth occurred while his rabbi father and mother were then on a temporary sojourn in England. Defendants seek to raise a doubt by pointing to a routine entry made by a crewman on an Atlantic Ocean vessel's manifest in 1906 which would indicate plaintiff's age as 14 years when considered with his claimed birth date of 1892, rather than the 11 years shown thereon, and that the manifest listed plaintiff, his father, mother and a sister as "Russians".
57
On the other hand, plaintiff's exhibit 9 is an affidavit by Solomon Schultz, which he executed on March 23, 1928 before a commissioner in the Supreme Court of Judicature in England. Therein Schultz swore that he had been a resident of Hull, England, "for the past 64 years" and that he was present about 1892 when a Jewish clergyman named E. Pearlson at a house (the location of which he stated) in Hull, England, performed a circumcision on a child named Jacob Factor,9 whose father was a traveling preacher named Abraham Joseph Factor; that he was able to speak "so definitely" because "of the unfamiliar name and the father of the child being a preacher who gave an address the previous Saturday in the synagogue in Kingston-upon-Hull aforesaid".
58
In 1892 Rabbi Factor took his pregnant wife to England. In the city of Hull he participated in the religious service at the Jewish synagogue. In that city the child of this pregnancy, named Jacob, was born to the Factors and was circumcised a few days later, according to the ritual of the Jewish faith. Thus started the life of plaintiff.
59
General conditions in Europe, both before and after that time, contributed to heavy immigration of Jewish people from Europe to the United States. In the decade of 1871-1880, 73.6% of immigrants to the United States came from nothern and western Europe, and only 7.2% from southern and eastern Europe, and the figures for the decade 1891-1900 show that the immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe were 44.6% and those from southern and eastern Europe were 51.9%. But, in the following decade, 1901-1910, immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe comprised only 21.7% while those originating in southern and eastern Europe were 70.8%. 8 U.S.C.A. 1, 12 (1953).
60
Thus, when plaintiff with his parents and sister Dena arrived at Philadelphia in 1906, the so-called "new immigration", largely coming from Russia as a result of Czarist persecution of the Jews, was at its height.
61
While it might have appeared superficially that plaintiff and his family were traveling by ship to the United States as part of a great migrating wave composed of Russian citizens, the undisputed fact that he was born in England had made him a British national.
62
In determining his status, the law in the United States recognizes the principle that a person's citizenship may be based upon his place of birth. Thus, plaintiff's naturalization in the United States by an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, entered July 15, 1963 recognized that he had been a national of England by virtue of his birth at Hull, England, on October 8, 1892.
63
3. Defendants' counsel offered in evidence exhibits 14 and 15, which are an opinion by Judge Charles E. Woodward of the United States District Court at Chicago, Illinois, and the verified motion of a defendant, Arthur L. Schwartz, to dismiss the second amended complaint in the Faber case, ante, page 5. However, we note that here (1) all of the testimony of various witnesses for plaintiff Factor (either personally, by deposition or by affidavit) was before the district court from which the present appeal has been taken, (2) this court's determination of this appeal is based upon all of said evidence, but (3) only parts of that evidence were before Judge Wilkerson and Judge Woodward.
64
4. Although the district court, from which the appeal in the present case was taken, imputed bad faith to the plaintiff in his assertion of his birth in England, the cumulation of facts established by the evidence, as hereinbefore set forth in this opinion, pointing to the birth of plaintiff at Hull, England, the evidence of family repute by the testimony of attorney Gilbert, and depositions and affidavits of numerous relatives of plaintiff, all lead to an inescapable conclusion that plaintiff could have justifiably believed that he was born in England in 1892. The correctness of this factual result is emphasized by the statement which plaintiff made to his attorney in 1928 when plaintiff consulted him for the purpose of making a will. On such an occasion a man would ordinarily have no conceivable purpose for concealing the place of his birth. Plaintiff then showed him a British passport, which he had just obtained and which showed that he had been born in Hull, England. Also in evidence as plaintiff's exhibit 14 is a Canadian passport issued January 2, 1923 to plaintiff, therein described as a "British subject."
65
Actually we must realistically face a situation where, in order to sustain the district court's findings herein, it would be necessary for us, not merely to disregard the mass of evidence in this record tending to support plaintiff's contention, but also to implicitly conclude that the witnesses and affiants, by which such evidence has been established, are unworthy of belief, either because of perjury or an amazing incapacity to remember important matters of family pedigree.
66
As to plaintiff being estopped in this case, it should be noted that rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that the defense of estoppel must be set up in a pleading. There is no such pleading on file in this case.
67
For these reasons the judgment of the district court is reversed and this cause is remanded to that court for a trial on the merits in accordance with the views herein expressed.
68
Reversed and remanded with directions.
69
KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge (dissenting).
70
It seems to me that the statute in question is designed to benefit those who make honest mistakes of law or fact and that the District Court did not err in considering the element of good faith. Nor does it seem to me that the burden of proving good faith was imposed on the plaintiff but merely the burden of carrying on with evidence at the hearing after a prima facie allegation of facts to show lack of good faith. While there is a conflict in the evidence, I do not believe that we can conclude that the District Court was clearly erroneous in its findings of fact. I would affirm the order of dismissal.
Notes: 1 § 24a, Ch. 83, Ill.Rev.Stat.1965
2 Factor v. Pennington Press, Inc., et al. (59 C 1961)
3But it is now contended by plaintiff's counsel and not denied that, under rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a dismissal solely on jurisdictional grounds could not be an adjudication on the merits
4Plaintiff cites Roth v. Northern Assurance Co. Ltd., 32 Ill.2d 40, 203 N.E.2d 415, 16 A.L.R. 3d 442 (1964)
5Affiant Schultz states in said affidavit that he at the time of said affidavit, was a tailor, 65 years of age, that Kingston-upon-Hull, England had been his residence for 64 years; that he remembered being present at a circumcision by Mr. Pearlson, a Jewish clergyman, performed in that city in a house in Upper Union Street, upon a child Jacob Factor, whose father was a traveling preacher Abraham Joseph Factor; that he remembered the incident definitely as the father had given an address the previous Saturday in the synagogue at Robinson Row, in Kingston-upon-Hull, that the date of this circumcision was about 1892
6Affidavit bears date of August 2, 1924, stating affiant's son, John Factor, was born at Hull, England, is executed by Leah Factor by her mark, notarized by Rose Factor. Monte Factor, Rose Factor's son, testified that the signature is that of his deceased mother
7Cert. denied 189 U.S. 514, 23 S.Ct. 853, 47 L.Ed. 924 (1903)
8Hutchings v. Lamson, 7 Cir., 96 F. 720 (1899)
9 Jacob and John are used interchangeably for plaintiff in the record in this case
John FACTOR, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CARSON, PIRIE SCOTT & COMPANY, Kroch's & Brentano's, Inc., The Fair,
Illinois corporations, and Ray Brennan, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 16000.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
March 13, 1968.
Rehearing Denied May 10, 1968, en banc.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Keith F. Bode, Robert E. Pfaff, Philip W. Tone, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant, Raymond, Mayer, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
Howard P. Robinson, George W. McBurney, Arthur F. Staubitz, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Carson, Pirie Scott & Co.; Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
Narcisse A. Brown, William F. McNally, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, The Fair.
Eloise Johnstone, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Ray Brennan.
Jack Edward Dwork, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, Kroch's & Brentano's, Inc.
Before SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge, KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge, and SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.
SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge.
1
John Factor, plaintiff, a resident of California, has appealed from a judgment of the district court dismissing, on the authority of an Illinois statute of limitations,1 his suit for libel and invasion of privacy, refiled in 1965.
2
The litigation is a result of the publication and sale of a book entitled "The Stolen Years" which plaintiff's counsel describe as a partially ghost-written autobiography of one Roger Touhy. Plaintiff maintains that the book charges him with perpetrating "one of the biggest swindles of its kind in history", and that, in addition, its principal theme is that plaintiff was guilty of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice, in connection with the conviction of Touhy for the kidnaping of plaintiff in the 1930's. Defendants moved to dismiss the suit on a number of grounds, including the statute of limitations.
3
An earlier suit on the same grounds as the instant action had been filed by plaintiff in the court below in December 1959.2 The named defendants were and are citizens of Illinois although plaintiff alleged he was then a British subject. Touhy was a defendant in the 1959 case until his death. In that case jurisdiction was based on 28 U.S.C.A. § 1332(a) (2), which confers jurisdiction upon district courts in civil actions between citizens of a state and citizens or subjects of a foreign state.
4
When defendants moved to dismiss the 1959 action for lack of jurisdiction, contending that plaintiff, an alien, was not a citizen of Great Britain, the district court denied the motion. 230 F.Supp. 906 (Dec. 30, 1963). Following a subsequent trial on the issue of jurisdiction, the district court on December 23, 1964 dismissed the 1959 case on the ground that plaintiff failed to sustain his burden of proof of the existence of jurisdictional facts. The court's view of the evidence was that it tended to prove that plaintiff was born in Russian Poland rather than in Great Britain, and that, under the court's interpretation of Russian law, plaintiff was, at the time of filing of that action, a stateless person and so not able to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction under the alienage provision. See 238 F. Supp. 630. The court stated the action was dismissed with prejudice.3
5
On September 16, 1965, plaintiff refiled his suit which is the instant action, 65 C 1558. It is undisputed that plaintiff had become an American citizen in 1963 and was a resident of California. His counsel now insist that the jurisdictional defect which caused the dismissal of the 1959 action now constitutes no impediment to the 1965 action and that, in fact, federal jurisdiction exists in this action on the basis of diversity of citizenship.
6
It is undisputed that the 1959 action had been commenced within the one-year limitation period prescribed by Illinois law for actions to recover damages for libel and for the invasion of a right of privacy. Plaintiff's counsel argue that, when that action was nonsuited, the right to refile was governed by § 24a of the Illinois Limitations Act, which provides:
7
§ 24a In any of the actions specified in any of the sections of this act or any other act or in any contract where the time of commencement of any action is limited, if judgment shall be given for the plaintiff, and the same be reversed upon appeal; or if a verdict pass for the plaintiff, and, upon matter alleged in arrest of judgment, the judgment be given against the plaintiff; or, if the plaintiff has heretofore been nonsuited or shall be nonsuited then, if the time limited for bringing such action shall have expired during the pendency of such suit, the plaintiff, his or her heirs, executors, or administrators, as the case shall require, may commence a new action within one year after such judgment reversed or given against the plaintiff, and not after.
8
Thus plaintiff contends that the one-year limitation period for the libel suit ended during the pendency of the 1959 action, that the dismissal of that action for lack of jurisdiction constituted a "nonsuit" under § 24a,4 and that the case at bar had been filed within the one-year period after dismissal of the 1959 action. Plaintiff insists he meets every requirement expressed in § 24a. However the district court held that plaintiff's action would be barred by the limitations unless he could show that he had acted in good faith in the 1959 action, which meant, according to that court, that plaintiff must have believed, in good faith, that he was born in Great Britain, when he prosecuted that action.
9
The court then determined the "good faith" issue against plaintiff, on the basis of the trial on the issue of jurisdiction of the 1959 action, and dismissed the 1965 action. However, on plaintiff's motion to vacate that dismissal, the court consented to receive evidence and on May 27, 1966 did hold a hearing, but, over plaintiff's objection, imposed upon him the burden of disproving defendants' charges of bad faith in connection with the 1959 action. The court received the oral testimony of witnesses in court, as well as certain depositions and a number of exhibits produced by plaintiff, all of which we condense as follows:
10
Plaintiff's sister, Dena Lupu, a housewife, aged 76 years, living in Los Angeles, California, by deposition, testified her mother's name was Leah Factor and her father's name was Abraham Joseph Factor, both deceased; that she was born in Lodz, Russia-Poland, that she and plaintiff, her brother, came from there to the United States with their parents; that plaintiff when he came to the United States, spoke Jewish; that he was about two years younger than she; that at their home her parents told her that her brother John was born in England; that they never told her John was born any other place than England.
11
Ted Factor, plaintiff's nephew, testified by deposition that in 1924 or 1925 in his parents' home in Chicago, when he was about nine or ten years old, his father who was about to go on a visit to Europe told him he was going to visit a brother in Hull, England, and that Ted's father stated Hull was the birthplace of John Factor, plaintiff here.
12
Ted Factor also recalled that other members of the family gave him the same information on other occasions, but that neither his father nor his uncle (plaintiff here) had ever told him the latter was born any place other than Hull, England.
13
Monte Factor, by deposition, testified that he is a nephew of plaintiff and also a son of Nathan Factor; that in his parents' home in St. Louis, prior to 1924 and in Chicago, and Oakland and Los Angeles, California, in 1924 and 1925, he heard both of his parents state that his uncle, John Factor, was born in England. He never heard his parents say that John was born at any other place.
14
Jerome Factor testified that he is plaintiff's son, that his parents were divorced about 1917, and that he has had frequent contacts over the years with plaintiff; that between 1930 and 1933 he and plaintiff were looking through a box and came upon plaintiff's British passport, whereupon plaintiff said that he was a British subject and was born in Hull, England. Further, Jerome testified that about 1924 he had a conversation with his uncle, Nathan Factor, in his St. Louis home in the presence of the latter's wife, Rose, and their sons, Ted and Monte, when Nathan Factor stated that plaintiff had been born in Hull, England, and he was the only member of the Factor family born any place other than Russia-Poland; that plaintiff's father and mother had been in Hull at the time of plaintiff's birth and that after plaintiff's birth plaintiff had been taken back to Poland
15
Jerome also recalled that about 1926 he talked with plaintiff's sister, "Aunt Gussie", at her store on Roosevelt Road in Chicago, when she stated that plaintiff was born in England.
16
Retired Chicago attorney George Gale Gilbert, Jr., testified he met plaintiff in 1928 when he came to Gilbert for the purpose of making a will. Under Gilbert's questions, indicating the importance of the information he sought, plaintiff informed him that he was a British subject and that he was born in Hull, England. He produced a British passport which indicated that he had obtained it by representing that he was born in Hull, England.
17
Mr. Gilbert testified that he represented plaintiff in the federal district court in Chicago in the case of Faber, et al., v. Foreman Trust and Savings Bank, No. 10538, in the course of which he made an investigation concerning plaintiff's place of birth. This investigation included a discussion with plaintiff, three of his brothers, an examination of immigration records, and a further interview with a brother and with plaintiff. Gilbert named several of these relatives. Also in 1932 he interviewed plaintiff's brother, Max Factor, who was deceased at the time Mr. Gilbert testified, and from Max he got the family history including the fact that plaintiff was born in Hull, England, of a rabbi father and his wife, while sojourning there, the details of which were set forth in Max's affidavit, hereinafter described.
18
John Factor, who was present at this interview, told Gilbert that he always believed that he had been born in Hull, England, that it was the family tradition in relation to his birth that he had heard several times. Rella Factor, wife of plaintiff, was in the room during the conversation.
19
Mr. Gilbert further testified that he recognized the signature "Max Factor" on the affidavit dated February 26, 1932, marked plaintiff's exhibit 1 and that it was so signed in his presence and that he (the witness) notarized it and also was familiar with its contents.
20
Mr. Gilbert also testified that he prepared an affidavit (plaintiff's exhibit 2), dated March 8, 1932 which was executed by Max Factor following an interview with him in Gilbert's office. Gilbert had interviewed Max Factor in the presence of John Factor and a secretary, during which the place of birth of plaintiff was discussed.
21
Gilbert further testified that Max told him again in greater detail of the family history of the birth of John in Hull, England, that he made a memorandum thereof, and that the affidavit contains the substance of what Max told him.
22
The witness [Gilbert] added that plaintiff looked over the affidavit and said something like "that is what I always thought".
23
So during 1932 the persons interviewed included John Factor, Max Factor, Daniel Factor and Nathan Factor. On these occasions both Nathan and Daniel also executed sworn affidavits. These affiants in detail stated that their father and mother, in 1892, left the home in Lodz, Poland, for a trip through Europe, in the latter part of that year returning to Lodz with a newborn child called John Factor, who was born in Hull, England. Neither Daniel nor Nathan was alive at the time Gilbert testified.
24
Plaintiff's testimony at the hearings in the 1959 and 1965 actions included the following:
25
He is the son of Abraham Joseph Factor, a rabbi, and Leah Factor, and spent his childhood in or near Lodz, Russian Poland; that he, his parents and sister Dena emigrated to the United States in 1905 or 1906. Until 1918 or 1919 he had assumed, without being told, that like his brothers and sisters, he had been born in or around Lodz.
26
In 1917 he made application to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, stating in the application that he was born in Russia; that shortly thereafter he informed his parents about the naturalization application and the statement therein regarding his place of birth; that then for the first time his parents informed him that the information he used on the application was incorrect, that he had been born in Hull, England, while the parents were on a visit there. As a result, plaintiff stated he took no further action with respect to his application for citizenship; that since this conversation he has continuously believed in good faith that he was a citizen of Great Britain by reason of birth there; that this belief was based, not only upon the aforementioned conversation with his parents, but upon later conversations with his parents, older half-brothers Max and Daniel, and his elder brother Nathan; that in all conversations with his father and mother they always stated that he was born in Hull, England. That all of his immediate family, except his brother Frank Factor, and his sister Dena Lupu, were deceased at the times of the hearings; that Frank, about five years older than he, was very ill.
27
That in the 1920's he made an investigation concerning his birthplace, asking a brother Bernard, living in Hull, England, to attempt to find proof of where plaintiff was born, and that in 1928 Bernard sent him a letter to the effect that "Enclosed you will find this document which I received from Mr. Schultz. He was at your circumcision."; that the enclosure [plaintiff's exhibit 9] is an affidavit of Solomon Schultz, dated March 23, 1928, at Kingston-upon-Hull, England.
28
Plaintiff testified that the customs of the orthodox Jewish faith require that infant boys be circumcised seven days after birth.5 Plaintiff testified further that:
29
During the course of his investigation in the 1920's regarding circumstances surrounding his birth, he obtained an affidavit [plaintiff's exhibit 10]6 from his mother, while has since been in his possession for many years.
30
Plaintiff identified his passport issued in Canada in 1923 [plaintiff's exhibit 14] which describes him as a British subject and states he was born in Hull, England. He also testified that when he filed, on October 21, 1959, his petition for naturalization as an American citizen, he stated therein that he was born in Hull, England. Records of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in case No. 217,599, corroborate plaintiff in that respect.
31
Defendants rested solely upon the transcript and exhibits introduced at the trial of the jurisdictional issue in the 1959 action.
32
Defendants, in their brief, cite, plaintiff's testimony in the 1959 case that in an affidavit he had stated his parents sojourned in England for two or three months and that his birth occurred on October 8, 1892 in Hull, England. Defendants also introduced in evidence the manifest sheet of the S.S. Haverford landing at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in March, 1906, on which plaintiff, his parents and sister came to this country, showing plaintiff's age as "eleven" and his nationality as Russian. That manifest sheet listed thirty names, with twenty-two printed column headings, on the first line of which opposite the first name in the column headed "Nationality" appeared the word "Russia". In that column underneath on each line of the sheet appeared a checkmark opposite each of twenty-nine names indicating each was from "Russia".
33
The record shows that plaintiff explained the discrepancy in his testimony about his age by admitting he "could not remember things that occurred that long ago" and that "these are discrepancies that are through the history of our family, because we had no birth certificates." Defense counsel attempted to impeach plaintiff as a witness by also calling his attention to statements about the date and place of his birth in connection with his application for a barber's license, his declaration of intent to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, the procuring of a Selective Service registration card in 1917, a birth certificate for his son Alvin, and his statement in 1925, when applying for a marriage license for his second marriage, that he was born in Chicago. In explanation, plaintiff testified frankly that he was in England when the son Alvin was born and did not furnish the information contained in the son's birth certificate; likewise that he listed Chicago as his birthplace because he feared that the revelation of his alien status might hinder or delay his marriage.
34
Defendants introduced their exhibit 14, an opinion by District Judge Woodward of the United States District Court in Chicago, dated March 5, 1932, in the case of Faber v. Foreman Trust & Savings Bank, No. 10538 in said court, denying a motion of John Factor and Rella Cohen Factor to reconsider their prior motion to dismiss the amended complaint in that action on jurisdictional grounds, which had been denied by Judge Wilkerson. Defendants' exhibit 15 is a verified motion by defendant Arthur L. Schwartz to dismiss the said amended complaint for want of jurisdiction, while defendants' exhibits 9 and 10 are copies of the decree and of findings of fact and conclusions of law entered in the Faber case September 29, 1932. There is a recital in defendants' exhibit 10 that John Factor is a citizen and resident of Illinois. Finally, defendants introduced documents showing the indictment, conviction and sentence in 1942-1943 of plaintiff for mail fraud.
35
Thereupon the trial court in the 1965 case on October 20, 1966 entered findings and concluded that the plaintiff had not shown good faith in claiming in the 1959 case that he was born in Hull, England, and held that his claims were barred by limitations. It dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Although estoppel had not been pleaded, the court said that plaintiff "should be estopped" from relying on § 24a.
36
1. The question of whether plaintiff was entitled to take advantage of the right, bestowed by § 24a, to refile his action, and, if so, under what conditions, was settled by the Illinois legislature when it enacted § 24a. The language of the act is precise. It is complete. These facts require the rejection of any additional requirement which a court might seek to impose. It was the duty of the district court to apply § 24a as enacted.
37
In Roth v. Northern Assurance Co., Ltd., 32 Ill.2d 40, 48, 203 N.E.2d 415, 419, 16 A.L.R.3d 442 (1964), the court said:
38
"* * * The plain purpose of section 24 is to facilitate the disposition of litigation upon the merits and to avoid its frustration upon grounds that are unrelated to the merits. No reason is suggested why this purpose is not just as applicable to a short contractual limitation as it is to the longer statutory period. In neither case is any injury inflicted upon the defendant, who must have knowledge of the claim asserted against it within the time provided by statute or contract, before the provision for the new action becomes operative. * * *" (Emphasis supplied.)
39
and at 49, 203 N.E.2d at 420, the court added:
40
"* * * `Statutes of limitation, like other statutes, must be construed in the light of their objectives. The basic policy of such statutes is to afford a defendant a fair opportunity to investigate the circumstances upon which liability against him is predicated while the facts are accessible. That purpose has been fully served here. As observed by Mr. Justice Holmes in New York Central & H. R. Railroad v. Kinney, 260 U.S. 340, 342, 43 S.Ct. 122, 67 L.Ed. 294, "Of course an argument can be made on the other side, but when a defendant has had notice from the beginning that the plaintiff sets up and is trying to enforce a claim against it because of specified conduct, the reasons for the statute of limitations do not exist, and we are of opinion that a liberal rule should be applied."' Geneva Construction Co. v. Martin Transfer and Storage Co., 4 Ill.2d 273, 289-290, 122 N.E.2d 540, 549."
41
In White v. Turner-Hudnut Co., 322 Ill. 133, 140, 152 N.E. 572 (1926), the court said:
42
"* * * Statutes of limitation are restrictive and will not be extended to cases other than those for which express provision is made. * * *"
43
The words of the statute of Illinois are unambiguous. However, in the case at bar, the district court in effect wrote into § 24a a limitation which the general assembly did not insert nor the Illinois Supreme Court has ever applied. The district court would withhold the benefit of the statute until plaintiff proved his good faith with respect to the allegations in the complaint which he had filed in the nonsuited action. We have been cited to no decision of any federal court or of any Illinois court which has superimposed this burden upon one who seeks to take advantage of § 24a. This is not surprising, because the right to plead the defense of limitation of an action has always been recognized by courts of law. Usually it is embodied in statutes, in which case the success of such defense depends upon the provisions of the statute itself, not to a judicial modification thereof. Section 24a is an additional statutory device, the use of which merely postpones the effectiveness of the intervening bar of a statute of limitations where a suit, filed seasonably, has been nonsuited. Where § 24a operates, it effects an extension of the time allowed for suing on the original cause of action. Therefore the new suit so filed is subject to defenses on the merits in the same way as was the first suit filed. We find no basis in law for holding that a plaintiff's reliance upon § 24a ipso facto creates an issue of his good faith in doing so. We shrink from the proposition that conformity to a state statute creates a presumption of bad faith.
44
There is no contention here, nor was there in the court below, that the equitable doctrine of laches bars plaintiff's action.
45
In Lamson v. Hutchings, 7 Cir., 118 F. 321 (1902),7 we discussed 2 Starr & Curtiss Ann. St., p. 2642, c. 83, par. 25, which was the forerunner of the present § 24a. In an earlier appeal8 this court had ruled that the case there involved was governed by the Illinois five-year statute of limitations. That suit was dismissed on February 4, 1897 and a new suit was commenced within one year thereafter. Par. 25 provided:
46
"In any of the actions specified in any of the sections of said act, * * * if the plaintiff be nonsuited, then, if the time limited for bringing such action shall have expired during the pendency of such suit, the said plaintiff, * * * may commence a new action within one year after such judgment * * * given against the plaintiff, and not after." At 323, this court said:
47
" * * * By that same token we think that this statute of Illinois, which seeks to relieve the diligent but mistaken claimant from the consequences of his mistake, should receive a like liberal interpretation in the interests of justice and of fair play. * * *" At 324, we continued:
48
"* * * The intent of the statute was that the time occupied in an unsuccessful litigation touching a demand — the statutory limitation expiring during the litigation — should not prove a bar, where the merits of the controversy had not been determined, but that a period of one year should be allowed after the expiration of the unsuccessful litigation to bring a proper action to enforce the demand; and this whether the unsuccessful litigation be at law or in equity. The legislature was not dealing with form merely, but with substance, to relieve from mistaken proceedings. * * *"
49
Accordingly this court affirmed the judgment against defendants entered by the district court.
50
It is significant that in the Lamson case, neither court nor counsel deemed worthy of mention the "good faith" of either litigant which, if it were relevant, could be injected to harass plaintiff in every case involving § 24a. We still believe that our views in Lamson are sound and that there can be no justification for the action of the district court in virtually amending § 24a by adding the words "good faith" and thus legislating a broad exception to § 24a. We think it significant that, likewise in Roth, ante, page 10, there is an absence of any inquiry into or judicial interest in plaintiff's good faith with respect to the filing of the prior action.
51
But on this point, defendants herein rely on Tidwell v. Smith, 57 Ill.App.2d 271, 273-274, 205 N.E.2d 484, 486 (2d Dist., 1965). However, in Tidwell the plaintiff attempted to use § 24a after his self-initiated delay, which the court held constituted a virtual abandonment of his cause of action, rather than for the purpose of affording a fair opportunity to try the case on the merits, which is unlike the situation in the case at bar.
52
In Sachs v. Ohio Nat. Life Ins. Co., 7 Cir., 131 F.2d 134 (1942), we emphasized the liberal construction to be given to § 24a. The opinion of this court shows that it was concerned with the question of whether the word "nonsuit" included "dismissal for want of jurisdiction of the amended and supplemental complaint filed in the former suit" and so was a "nonsuit" within the meaning of § 24a. No issue of good faith was before the court. Although, at 137, we said,
53
"The act is remedial, reflecting a legislative intent to protect the party who brings the action in good faith from complete loss of relief on the merits merely because of a procedural defect. * * *",
54
obviously the words "good faith" are obiter dictum.
55
2. The fundamental question now is whether there was in the evidence in the record before the district court a sufficient basis for a reasonable belief by plaintiff that he was born in Hull, England.
56
In brief, the Factor family in 1892 was living in Russia, but plaintiff's birth occurred while his rabbi father and mother were then on a temporary sojourn in England. Defendants seek to raise a doubt by pointing to a routine entry made by a crewman on an Atlantic Ocean vessel's manifest in 1906 which would indicate plaintiff's age as 14 years when considered with his claimed birth date of 1892, rather than the 11 years shown thereon, and that the manifest listed plaintiff, his father, mother and a sister as "Russians".
57
On the other hand, plaintiff's exhibit 9 is an affidavit by Solomon Schultz, which he executed on March 23, 1928 before a commissioner in the Supreme Court of Judicature in England. Therein Schultz swore that he had been a resident of Hull, England, "for the past 64 years" and that he was present about 1892 when a Jewish clergyman named E. Pearlson at a house (the location of which he stated) in Hull, England, performed a circumcision on a child named Jacob Factor,9 whose father was a traveling preacher named Abraham Joseph Factor; that he was able to speak "so definitely" because "of the unfamiliar name and the father of the child being a preacher who gave an address the previous Saturday in the synagogue in Kingston-upon-Hull aforesaid".
58
In 1892 Rabbi Factor took his pregnant wife to England. In the city of Hull he participated in the religious service at the Jewish synagogue. In that city the child of this pregnancy, named Jacob, was born to the Factors and was circumcised a few days later, according to the ritual of the Jewish faith. Thus started the life of plaintiff.
59
General conditions in Europe, both before and after that time, contributed to heavy immigration of Jewish people from Europe to the United States. In the decade of 1871-1880, 73.6% of immigrants to the United States came from nothern and western Europe, and only 7.2% from southern and eastern Europe, and the figures for the decade 1891-1900 show that the immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe were 44.6% and those from southern and eastern Europe were 51.9%. But, in the following decade, 1901-1910, immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe comprised only 21.7% while those originating in southern and eastern Europe were 70.8%. 8 U.S.C.A. 1, 12 (1953).
60
Thus, when plaintiff with his parents and sister Dena arrived at Philadelphia in 1906, the so-called "new immigration", largely coming from Russia as a result of Czarist persecution of the Jews, was at its height.
61
While it might have appeared superficially that plaintiff and his family were traveling by ship to the United States as part of a great migrating wave composed of Russian citizens, the undisputed fact that he was born in England had made him a British national.
62
In determining his status, the law in the United States recognizes the principle that a person's citizenship may be based upon his place of birth. Thus, plaintiff's naturalization in the United States by an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, entered July 15, 1963 recognized that he had been a national of England by virtue of his birth at Hull, England, on October 8, 1892.
63
3. Defendants' counsel offered in evidence exhibits 14 and 15, which are an opinion by Judge Charles E. Woodward of the United States District Court at Chicago, Illinois, and the verified motion of a defendant, Arthur L. Schwartz, to dismiss the second amended complaint in the Faber case, ante, page 5. However, we note that here (1) all of the testimony of various witnesses for plaintiff Factor (either personally, by deposition or by affidavit) was before the district court from which the present appeal has been taken, (2) this court's determination of this appeal is based upon all of said evidence, but (3) only parts of that evidence were before Judge Wilkerson and Judge Woodward.
64
4. Although the district court, from which the appeal in the present case was taken, imputed bad faith to the plaintiff in his assertion of his birth in England, the cumulation of facts established by the evidence, as hereinbefore set forth in this opinion, pointing to the birth of plaintiff at Hull, England, the evidence of family repute by the testimony of attorney Gilbert, and depositions and affidavits of numerous relatives of plaintiff, all lead to an inescapable conclusion that plaintiff could have justifiably believed that he was born in England in 1892. The correctness of this factual result is emphasized by the statement which plaintiff made to his attorney in 1928 when plaintiff consulted him for the purpose of making a will. On such an occasion a man would ordinarily have no conceivable purpose for concealing the place of his birth. Plaintiff then showed him a British passport, which he had just obtained and which showed that he had been born in Hull, England. Also in evidence as plaintiff's exhibit 14 is a Canadian passport issued January 2, 1923 to plaintiff, therein described as a "British subject."
65
Actually we must realistically face a situation where, in order to sustain the district court's findings herein, it would be necessary for us, not merely to disregard the mass of evidence in this record tending to support plaintiff's contention, but also to implicitly conclude that the witnesses and affiants, by which such evidence has been established, are unworthy of belief, either because of perjury or an amazing incapacity to remember important matters of family pedigree.
66
As to plaintiff being estopped in this case, it should be noted that rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that the defense of estoppel must be set up in a pleading. There is no such pleading on file in this case.
67
For these reasons the judgment of the district court is reversed and this cause is remanded to that court for a trial on the merits in accordance with the views herein expressed.
68
Reversed and remanded with directions.
69
KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge (dissenting).
70
It seems to me that the statute in question is designed to benefit those who make honest mistakes of law or fact and that the District Court did not err in considering the element of good faith. Nor does it seem to me that the burden of proving good faith was imposed on the plaintiff but merely the burden of carrying on with evidence at the hearing after a prima facie allegation of facts to show lack of good faith. While there is a conflict in the evidence, I do not believe that we can conclude that the District Court was clearly erroneous in its findings of fact. I would affirm the order of dismissal.
Notes: 1 § 24a, Ch. 83, Ill.Rev.Stat.1965
2 Factor v. Pennington Press, Inc., et al. (59 C 1961)
3But it is now contended by plaintiff's counsel and not denied that, under rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a dismissal solely on jurisdictional grounds could not be an adjudication on the merits
4Plaintiff cites Roth v. Northern Assurance Co. Ltd., 32 Ill.2d 40, 203 N.E.2d 415, 16 A.L.R. 3d 442 (1964)
5Affiant Schultz states in said affidavit that he at the time of said affidavit, was a tailor, 65 years of age, that Kingston-upon-Hull, England had been his residence for 64 years; that he remembered being present at a circumcision by Mr. Pearlson, a Jewish clergyman, performed in that city in a house in Upper Union Street, upon a child Jacob Factor, whose father was a traveling preacher Abraham Joseph Factor; that he remembered the incident definitely as the father had given an address the previous Saturday in the synagogue at Robinson Row, in Kingston-upon-Hull, that the date of this circumcision was about 1892
6Affidavit bears date of August 2, 1924, stating affiant's son, John Factor, was born at Hull, England, is executed by Leah Factor by her mark, notarized by Rose Factor. Monte Factor, Rose Factor's son, testified that the signature is that of his deceased mother
7Cert. denied 189 U.S. 514, 23 S.Ct. 853, 47 L.Ed. 924 (1903)
8Hutchings v. Lamson, 7 Cir., 96 F. 720 (1899)
9 Jacob and John are used interchangeably for plaintiff in the record in this case
LUCK AND WITLESS VIRTUE
LUCK AND WITLESS VIRTUE vs. GUILE IN WHICH AN ENGLISH CLERGYMAN PROVES THE NEMESIS OF JOHN ("JAKE THE BARBER") FACTOR, alias J. WISE, alias H. GUEST
By Thomas Chalfont McConnell
Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club March 1, 1943
Copyright 1943 by The Chicago Literary Club
JOHN JACOB FACTOR is now serving a ten-year sentence in a federal penitentiary for a crime which fell far below the standard of performance he set for himself in England. The only point of similarity to the subject matter of this paper is that the complaining witness in the recent federal prosecution, which terminated Factor's career, was a clergyman.Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club March 1, 1943
Copyright 1943 by The Chicago Literary Club
Through the aid of a British solicitor doing business in Paris, an introduction was obtained to the Director of Criminal Prosecutions in the Prefecture. To my surprise, this gentleman was not French, but English. His name was Roberts, and, after twenty years of effort, he had accomplished the almost impossible feat of heading a department under French Civil Service. It would seem that he is entitled to a slight digression. He had an office in that part of the Prefecture which dates back to the year 800. This part of the building had stood since Paris was merely an island on a mud flat on a bend in the Seine. The windows to his office were grated slits in a wall at least six feet thick. The window over his desk gave view to the approach to the Prefecture and a part of the Seine. During his tenure of the office, Roberts had occupied his spare time in making sketches of the scenes he viewed through this window. The office walls were covered with these drawings and proved him a talented artist, and a few minutes conversation proved him a highly cultured and extremely intelligent man. I have since wondered whether or not his position as head of the law-enforcement division of the Civil Service might not have been explained by some connection with the British Secret Service.
To him was submitted the problem of how to obtain evidence in a land where to divulge it was a crime. He advised that there was an exception to this law in that the Director of Criminal Prosecutions could compel the production of any documents or records he might require in making an investigation. However, there was a limitation to this exception. While the witness who provided the information was protected from prosecution by the Prosecutor's request, he could refuse to divulge it, and upon such refusal the maximum penalty was a fine of twenty francs, at that time eighty cents in our money. The French court had no power to cite such refusal as a contempt, as is the common practice here. However, the witnesses were perfectly willing to give the information, when assured of their own immunity. This procedure thus procured the records necessary to prove the transactions which had taken place in France.
On arrival in London, the really serious part of the business began. We had previously determined that the source of the trust funds in Chicago was twofold: first, the cable of one million dollars from Brown, Shipley, and Company in London to Brown Bros., Harriman, and Company in New York by Arthur J. Klein to Rella Factor, and, second, a registered package containing a million-dollar market value of British War Loan Bonds sent by a broker in London to the Union Bank of Chicago as receiving agent for a Mrs. Cohen, who was Factor's mother-in-law. We had obtained the serial numbers of these bonds and also the name of the English broker who had forwarded them. This, then, was the obvious starting point for further investigation.
Depositions were started before the United States consul in London. The broker's records showed he had been put in funds for the purchase of these bonds by cash withdrawn from the North of Scotland Bank on the order of Arthur J. Klein. The records of that bank disclosed that these funds had been paid out of the account of H. Guest. The memorandum in the possession of the bank justifying this charge was what was termed a "paying-out slip." This document showed the charge to the account, the delivery of the money to a bank messenger, and the receipt signed by the broker. The account of H. Guest was shown to be the account of Factor by the bank manager, who, by pointing out a photograph of Factor, identified him as the bank's customer. The bank had in its possession a power of attorney executed by H. Guest making Arthur J. Klein his attorney in fact to check against the account. The signature on this document was identified as that of Jacob Factor. In a similar manner, the million dollars in currency sent by Brown, Shipley, and Company to New York was traced back to a withdrawal by Klein from the H. Guest account in the North of Scotland Bank. It was now necessary to trace the source of the monies which had been paid into the account of H. Guest at the North of Scotland Bank. They totaled in all some nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. A large part of these sums came from Barclay's Bank and the Midland Bank, but among the deposits was a cash item of something over one hundred and seven thousand pounds which was made at a date corresponding to the closing of the account of the Financial Recorder in the Midland Bank.
To understand the difficulties involved, some explanation is necessary of the nature and character of the English banking system. There are five great branch banking systems. The banks named above are two of these and have branches all over the City of London, throughout England, the colonies, and on the Continent, so that a payment made to the North of Scotland Bank designated on its records as originating from Barclay's Bank might have come from any bank belonging to the chain. It was necessary to work down through the records of the head offices of these banks to find and locate the particular branch involved. It is sufficient here to note that, as a result of a lot of examination of books and records, it was ultimately disclosed that the deposits in the H. Guest account originated in withdrawals from branches of Barclay's and the Midland with which the Broad Street Press did business.
At the time these transactions took place, the British banks were using a depositor's book called a "paying-in book." It was somewhat similar to the passbook used by our own banks, but with a difference, in that the original paying-in book belonged to the bank and remained in its possession. The entries in the book were made by the customers and showed the number of the check deposited, the name of the drawer, the drawee bank, and the amount. Cash deposits showed the numbers appearing on the bank notes. When a deposit was made, the customer called for his paying-in book, made the entry, and turned the book back to the bank. It thus constituted a statement of account made out in the handwriting of the depositor and was thus an admission of the receipt of any items handled and gave complete evidence of their source.
At the time the depositions were taken the paying-in books had been superseded by deposit slips similar to our own, but the old paying-in books of the Broad Street Press still remained in the hands of the bank, and these furnished us the evidence, not only of payments into the account of the Broad Street Press, but also of the source of the payments and the state of the accounts of the company with its various clients. As these customers were as a class the persons upon whose behalf the suit was brought, and as it was their money we were seeking to trace, these records proved a commingling of their money in a bank account in the name of the Broad Street Press.
The mere statement of this proof can give no adequate picture of the many technical difficulties with the evidence which counsel had to meet and overcome. For example, British banks do not voluntarily produce their books so that proof can be made in American courts. In fact, to produce the sort of proof of these transactions our courts require would have disrupted the entire banking system of England, because the customers accounts are not kept in a loose-leaf ledger, as is the practice in this country, but are entered in longhand in a voluminous and bulky customers ledger. This ledger is in constant use in an English bank to show the state of its accounts with its clients, and is the only permanent record which they have. To subpoena in the books themselves would mean that the English bank would be giving its permanent records into the jurisdiction of an American court, which in turn might order them returned to America and thus deprive the bank of the only source of information as to the state of its accounts.
To protect the banks from the loss of their records, the British Parliament had passed a Banker's Act which provided that, upon a subpoena being served, the requirements of evidence could be satisfied by certification by the bank manager of the entries in the ledger. Under that act it was not necessary in England to prove the making of the entries in the books or any of the foundation proof so necessary in our courts, as the records so certified proved themselves and were admissible without more.
As any lawyer knows, such proof would not prove anything in our courts, and it was necessary for us in some way to devise a method of getting a record proof which would satisfy our rules of evidence. This was done by arranging to have the bankers photostat the entries, and then produce the books under a stipulation permitting their withdrawal from evidence after opposing counsel were given the opportunity to use them on their cross-examination. The photostats were then proved to be the same as the original records and the foundation proof as to the making of the entries was put in by the testimony of the ledger clerks. Since the British bankers were unfamiliar with what seemed to them a very queer proceeding, they would invariably refuse to answer any question until it was arranged to have their own counsel present. The result was that at practically every session of the taking of the depositions, a bank manager would appear accompanied by a barrister and a solicitor, all dressed in cutaway coats and striped trousers, prepared for a very formal and dignified noting of their objections in the record. Whenever a question was asked, they would go into a huddle and decide whether or not they should advise the witness to answer.
To get these bank witnesses in the first place, it was necessary to petition the English High Court of Justice for a subpoena calling for oral testimony and records. Counsel, of course, had no standing in the English courts, but did have a very important looking document designated as "Letters Rogatory" under the seal of the United States District Court, with large red ribbons attached. "Letters Rogatory" at that time were only honored under the treaties with England in a case where the nation itself was a party to the suit. However, the English High Court of Justice was not familiar with this technicality, and since counsel for the banks did not point it out and counsel for the plaintiffs were content to rest their plea on the document itself, the subpoenas issued without difficulty.
The taking of these depositions was a day and night task, and we made the American Club our office and headquarters. Never before or since has the staid, austere, and thoroughly reputable American Club seen such a succession of questionable characters pass through its portals. Examining witnesses out of court in the evening and in court by day, and with two lawyers working continuously at the task fifteen hours a day, months were spent. As Westbrook Pegler would say, the English lawyers went off the sled at the first turn. By the end of the month of August, 1932, most of the technical proof had been introduced in evidence, but all that had been done so far had only given emphasis to the most difficult problem in the entire case, which, if not solved, threatened to defeat and negative all that had gone before.
After a tiresome succession of ledger clerks and bank witnesses and the offering into evidence of hundreds of documents and records, and after taking the testimony of more than two hundred witnesses, it was apparent that exactly no progress had been made in connecting up the Faber claim with the funds of the Broad Street Press. Faber's money had been paid into the Midland Bank. His canceled check showed the indorsement of Captain Bowles to the account of the Financial Recorder. The record of this account showed deposits of around two hundred thousand pounds sterling. It showed numerous withdrawals from time to time, but from the time of the Faber deposit until the closing of the account there were always sufficient funds on hand to cover Faber's payment.
The applicable theory of tracing is that, as between a person wronged and the wrongdoer, money paid out of a commingled fund is presumed to belong to the wrongdoer until the fund is exhausted. Under this theory Faber could trace down to the date of the closing of the account, but there the trail ended in a blind alley. Bowles had closed the account by withdrawing the balance in cash. As pointed out above, a clue had been given by the records in the North of Scotland Bank, which showed a credit to the H. Guest account of cash in a similar, but not identical, amount to that of the Bowles withdrawal. The dates of the withdrawal and the deposit were only two days apart. It was therefore a moral certainty that the entry in the H. Guest account represented a payment from Bowles to Factor of monies drawn from the Financial Recorder account. If this could be proved, then Faber's money was commingled with the Broad Street Press money in the account of H. Guest.
It was obvious that the missing link of proof could only be supplied by Bowles, but where to find Bowles? Scotland Yard was consulted, but all they could tell us was that he had not left the country, at least not under his own name. Since the affair of the Financial Recorder some two years before, he had dropped completely out of sight. A young lawyer named Perry, associated with the Wordsworth firm, had met him at the time of an investigation by the senior official receiver of the affairs of the Financial Recorder. He had talked with him and he could recognize him. Perry was assigned the task of locating him to the exclusion of all else. He ran down all available clues, traveling to Hull, Liverpool, and various places in Scotland. All during the time the depositions were being taken he could report no progress. We were nearing the end of our task, and the constant subject of discussion was when and where and if ever we might count on finding Bowles. We had finally reached the stage of considering amendments or other ways and means of getting out from under the legal objections to our suit which a failure to make this proof would immediately raise. We knew that our opponents were enjoying our discomfiture. They kept asking us whether or when we intended to put Bowles on the stand. From this we could only infer that Bowles was enjoying himself on the Continent or in the colonies on a Factor expense account.
One evening I invited Perry to the American Club for dinner. We took the underground and got off at Piccadilly Circus, intending to walk the remaining distance to the Club. Now Perry had a profound and enduring regard for an English drink named "gin and ginger." The sight of the Piccadilly Bar caught his eye as we emerged from the underground. In the next two hours that establishment did quite a business in Perry's favorite drink.
Comfortably installed in an eighteenth century atmosphere, the thought of dinner at the Club had long since lost any attraction for either of us. By this time Perry had shed his customary English reserve and was well launched on a lengthy discourse, the topic of which, if ever remembered, has long since been forgotten, when suddenly he stopped talking and began to listen.
There was a telephone stall directly behind the booth in which we were sitting, and someone was having difficulty with a number. Perry quietly disengaged himself from the table and walked behind the booth. A few seconds later he was back introducing me to Captain Alexander Clarence Bowles, V.C. Much later in the evening, at a restaurant in Soho, he told us all about his association with Factor.
Needless to say, by that time we had developed quite an attachment for the Captain, and we had no desire or intention of losing his company. He had no guest card, but nevertheless he spent the night at the American Club with a doorman hired by the Club to keep his like out, now hired by us to keep him in. Next morning Bowles, Perry, and I left the Club, bound for a deposition hearing at the Linited States consul's office on Harley Street.
Bowles made an excellent witness. He testified he had withdrawn all the funds of the Financial Recorder under directions from Factor and had met him two days later at his rooms in the Mayfair Hotel. There he had received instructions to deposit the money in cash to the account of H. Guest at the North of Scotland Bank. He further testified that Factor had told him to keep for himself the sum of five hundred pounds with which to take up residence on the Continent. He said he had made the deduction and deposited the balance, but not wishing to spend the five hundred pounds in Continental travel he had sedulously avoided any further meeting with Factor.
On cross-examination some considerable doubt was cast on whether Factor had actually authorized the five hundred pound deduction, but this line of questioning only strengthened the proof of the actual deposit of Financial Recorder funds in Factor's account. When Bowles left the stand, no one present had the slightest doubt but that Faber's case stood complete and beyond refutation.
Settlement talks immediately ensued. So far as Factor's counsel and ourselves were concerned we had practically reached an agreement two days after the conclusion of the Bowles testimony, but we had not reckoned with Mr. Pepys. This old fuddy-duddy had all of the vices and none of the virtues of the original Pepys, who wrote the diary. He was incensed at the thought that American lawyers were undertaking to agree about matters within his prerogatives, so he sent around a note by messenger that the settlement conversations were to be continued at the office of the Senior Official Receiver. Since all of Factor's companies were in liquidation and Pepys was the liquidator, we had no alternative but to adjourn our meetings to this place of assignation. There Mr. Pepys held court from his desk on a little raised dais, and we sat before him at desks, feeling like little schoolboys, while he called on us one by one for our views. He then called in scriveners to put the suggestions in draft form. The sessions would start at eleven in the morning and continue until two-thirty in the afternoon, at which time Pepys would ring a bell, and his clerk would bring him his hat, coat, rubbers, and umbrella, and we were through for the day. One Friday we had reached a point in the discussion vital to Mr. Lee and myself, in fact one might say that, from our point of view, it was the crux of the matter, and that was the size of our fee. At this juncture Mr. Pepys rang his bell and his clerk appeared with the customary accouterments. Since it was only one o clock, we asked him where he was going, to which he replied that his weekly holiday had started and that he would be back on the following Tuesday.
As Charley McCarthy would say, "That did it." Lee wrathfully announced that he was sailing on the next boat. Factor's lawyers announced that they had made the only proposal they were ever going to make, and he could take it or go on with the suit; that since holidays seemed to be in season they were taking one too, and were leaving immediately for three weeks on the Continent. Pepys never turned a hair. He calmly put on his j rubbers, his coat, and his bowler hat, picked up his umbrella, said "Good day, gentlemen," and walked out of our respective lives forever. Lee took the next boat, leaving to Wordsworth and myself the task of obtaining approval of the settlement. We circularized all the victims and obtained the consent of 94 per cent of them, and then appeared before a British court to get the approval. After the hearing the court took under advisement a petition to approve, without prejudice to the extradition proceedings, a net payment of some three hundred and seventy-four thousand pounds in release of the claims of those who dealt with Factor's companies. This amount was the approximate equivalent of the then value of the trusts established in the Chicago banks.
Faber, however, had not completed his mission. He insisted that out of the settlement funds he be paid the amount he had invested plus what he termed his customary profit plus all his costs, including those incurred in the Bowles suit, plus interest at bank rates. This, in gratitude, the other claimants were willing to concede after they found out Faber intended to block the settlement unless they did.
Since the court had indicated that the settlement would be approved in due course, I felt free to sail for home. I had passage on the "Europa" and went aboard at Plymouth without awaiting the actual entry of the order. Again I had reckoned without Pepys. When I checked in with the purser he handed me a telegram from Wordsworth requesting me to return to London immediately to defend a petition by Pepys to modify the settlement to permit the fixing of the attorneys fees by the English court. The purser had also handed me a cable from my wife stating that she was meeting the boat in New York. I went to my stateroom to consider the position. It was apparent that Pepys could do no real damage, as Judge Wilkerson, with jurisdiction over the fund, would have the final word regardless of what the English court might say. It was also fairly clear that Wordsworth's hand was strengthened, on any further hearing, by my absence. The amenities of the situation, however, still needed careful consideration. Thereupon I had an inspiration. Everyone in the case had been addicted to holidays except myself. To an Englishman the word "holiday" connotes something sacrosanct, a natural, inalienable, and fundamental right. Why not call this boat trip my holiday? I then wired Wordsworth to tell Pepys that I was taking a holiday, and that if the judge indicated an intention to amend the order of approval, to withdraw our petition, cable me in New York, and I would return on the next boat and renew the application. On my arrival in New York I found a cable from Wordsworth saying that the judge, in spite of Pepys objection, had approved the settlement without amendment or modification.
Probably a more apt title for this paper would have been "Luck and Stubborn or Shrewd Virtue vs. Guile," because it is quite apparent that Faber's actions in the course of this suit were far from witless. There can, however, be no doubt about his luck. Factor prided himself on his amazing success at games of chance. The records at Le Touquet showed that he had won almost a million francs in competition with the best of Continental gamblers. There is a well-authenticated story that as banker in a game of chemin de fer he had once left a future king of England living for a time on the interest of his debts. Be that as it may, Factor couldn't win a trick from Faber.
The chances against the disclosure of the hiding place of Faber's money four thousand miles away, by casual conversation in the presence of a person in a city of three million souls, who had his claim in hand, far exceed any possible combinations of odds at Monte Carlo, and any editor worth his salt would reject outright the story of Perry's meeting with Bowles as far beyond the range of credibility.
A moralist of the High Church school would conclude that the very Fates themselves were set in angry and retributive motion when Factor instructed Bowles to tell a clergyman of the State Church of England to go to hell. However, no moralist could survive the advantage, enjoyed by the writer, of studying proximate causation under the late Joseph H. Beale. Applying Beale's theory of the latest intervening factor upon a set stage or fixed frame of reference, there can be not the slightest scintilla of a doubt but that the success of the Reverend Faber should be ascribed to Mr. Perry's well-developed taste for "gin and ginger."
THIS PAPER WAS WRITTEN FOR THE CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB AND READ BEFORE THE CLUB ON MARCH FIRST, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE. THIS EDITION OF THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY COPIES WAS PRINTED FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE CLUB IN THE MONTH OF JULY, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE.
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