No Law For Fools

The common belief that the law will cast a special protection around the weak and feeble gets rudely shattered by a decision in the United States versus Fay (83 Fed. Rep. 839), which holds that only persons of ordinary prudence are within the protection of United States revenue statutes, section 5,480, against schemes to defraud by use of the mails. The court held that a scheme by which a man was led to pay $50 for the use of an alleged superhuman power to discover a treasure hid in his field was not a "scheme to defraud" because it was "not reasonably adapted to deceive persons of ordinary prudence". This decision, says Case and Comment, would allow the safe use of the mails by all sharks looking for gudgeons. It seems not only against reason, but against the authority of United States versus Reed (42 Fed. Rep. 134), in which the court condemned a similar scheme to get money by professing to exercise a mysterious power to answer sealed letters addressed to spirits. Those who do not have ordinary prudence are the people for whom the statute is needed.