Olin R. Moyle was legal counsel for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society from 1935 to 1939, on staff at the headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York, also known as Bethel. He helped represent Jehovah's Witnesses in several key cases before the United States Supreme Court, many which set new precedents on First Amendment freedoms.[1]A dispute with Watch Tower President Joseph Franklin Rutherford led to his suing the Watch Tower Society for libel, stemming from an article in the October 15, 1939 issue of the Society's publication, The Watchtower magazine.
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Association with Bible Students
Moyle became a member of Charles Taze Russell's Bible Students about the year 1910.
Legal Department
Starting in the late 1920s, Judge Rutherford began training Jehovah's Witnesses to fight in their local courts anyone and everyone who opposed the work of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
By 1935, the number of cases across the United States were so many that Rutherford decided to form a separate Legal Department within the WatchTower Society, selecting Moyle to head it up. Moyle and his wife Phoebe sold their home and belongings and moved their family from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin to WatchTower headquarters in Brooklyn, N. Y. There, while he worked in the legal department, Phoebe worked as a chambermaid in the Bethel home, and their son Peter worked in the cafeteria and later in the press room as a linotype operator. Rutherford and Moyle represented the Society jointly in various lawsuits.[2] In 1938, Moyle won the Lovell v. City of Griffin case before the Supreme Court of the United States.[3]
Resignation
In 1939, Moyle, who had been a teetotalling Prohibitionist before he was a Jehovah's Witness, got into a personal spat with Judge Rutherford over Rutherford's heavy drinking and cursing. Moyle wrote an open letter of resignation to Joseph F. Rutherford, [4] second President of the Watchtower Society, to complain about what he thought was excessive and inappropriate behavior, which he had witnessed from some members of the Bethel family, including Rutherford himself.[5] Among other things, Moyle accused Rutherford of ""unkind treatment of the staff, outbursts of anger, discrimination and vulgar language." Moyle also cited Beth Sarim as one of the examples of "the difference between the accommodations furnished to you, and your personal attendants, compared with those furnished to some of your brethren."[6][7] Judge Rutherford was furious, and had the WatchTower Society's Board of Directors formally fire Moyle.
Moyle had been handling the famous Minersville School District v. Gobitis case, and had won at the trial court level as well as at the appellate level. However, after Judge Rutherford fired and slandered Moyle, the Minersville School District appealed the Gobitis case to the Supreme Court. Judge Rutherford himself argued the case before the Supreme Court in 1940, and the Court ruled against the Jehovah's Witnesses by a vote of 8-1. It was this ruling that triggered the nationwide wave of violence against Jehovah's Witnesses that lasted for the next several months.
Libel lawsuit
Following Moyle's resignation, departure from Bethel, and return to his home congregation in Wisconsin, the Watch Tower Society's board of directors responded in the pages of The Watchtower, stating that "every paragraph of that letter is false, filled with lies, and is a wicked slander and a libel."[8]
| “ | For four years past the writer of that letter has been entrusted with the confidential matters of the Society. It now appears that the writer of that letter, without excuse, libels the family of God at Bethel, and identifies himself as one who speaks evil against the Lord's organization, and who is a murmurer and complainer, even as the scriptures have foretold. (Jude 4-16; 1Cor. 4:3; Rom 14:4)
The members of the board of directors hereby resent the unjust criticism appearing in that letter, disapprove of the writer and his actions, and recommend the president of the Society immediately terminate the relationship of O.R. Moyle to the Society as legal counsel and as a member of the Bethel family. |
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In 1940, Moyle sued both the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York over the Watchtower response. He won his suit, and the court awarded him $30,000 in damages, which was later reduced to $15,000 on appeal in 1944.[9]
The initial jury verdict was affirmed twice on appeal; first by the five member Appellate Division, 2nd Department (3-2); and second, unanimously, by the seven members of the state's highest court, The Court of Appeals, in the capitol at Albany.
- Moyle v. Rutherford et al., 261 App. Div. 968; 26 N.Y.S. 2d 860;
- Moyle v. Franz et al., 267 App. Div. 423; 46 N.Y.S. 2d 607;
- Moyle v. Franz et al., 47 N.Y.S. 484.
References
- ^ "Schneider v. New Jersey". http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/faclibrary/case.aspx?case=Schneider_v_NJ. See also Lovell v. City of Griffin
- ^ FindLaw, U.S. Supreme Court SCHNEIDER v. NEW JERSEY, 308 U.S. 147 (1939)
- ^ "Correspondence from Rutherford to Moyle re: the Griffin case". http://cchasson.free.fr/deposit/doc/rutherfordletterde5.jpg.
- ^ "Moyle's open letter to Rutherford". http://www.docbob.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=21.
- ^ Doc Bob's JW website, Moyle's open letter to Rutherford
- ^ Olin R. Moyle's Letter to J.F. Rutherford
- ^ Tony Wills (2007). A People For His Name: A History of Jehovah's Witnesses and an Evaluation. Lulu.com. pp. 202-204. http://books.google.com/books?id=iTt2EphfPr8C&pg=PA181&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0&sig=ACfU3U0F2GGjNJwRVqrN3VdyNIO6Z2uhhQ#PPA202,M1.
- ^ Blizard, Paul. "Watchtower response Watch the Tower website". http://www.geocities.com/paulblizard/response.html Watchtower response.
- ^ December 20, 1944 Consolation, p. 21
External links
- PDF of Olin R. Moyle v. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, New York Supreme Court, 1940
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