MARRONE
v.
WASHINGTON JOCKEY CLUB
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The Supreme Court upheld a race track's right to exclude a ticket holder from the premises, holding that the purchase of an admission ticket creates only a personal contract right rather than a property interest in the land. The Court affirmed that admission tickets do not convey a real property right valid against the landowner and therefore cannot be enforced through self-help measures; the ticket holder's sole remedy for wrongful exclusion is a breach of contract suit for damages.
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Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action of trespass for forcibly preventing the plaintiff from entering the Benningh Race. Track in this District after he had bought a ticket of admission, and for doing the same thing, or turning him out, on the following day just after he had dropped his ticket into the box. There was also a count charging that the defen da ntr conspired to destroy the plaintiff’s reputation and that they excluded him on the charge of having 'doped’ or drugged a horse entered by him for a race a few days Ire-fore, in pursuance of such conspiracy. But as no evidence of a conspiracy was introduced and as no more force was used than was necessary to-prevent the plaintiff from entering upon the rac.e track, the argument hardly went beyond an attempt to overthrow the rule commonly accepted in this country from the English cases, and adopted below, that such tickets do not create a right in rem. 35 App.
D. C.
82. Wood v. Leadbitter, 13 M. & W.
838. McCrea v. Marsh, 12 Gray, 211. Johnson v. Wilkinson, 139 Massachusetts, 3. Horney v. Nixon, 213 Pa. St.
20. Meisner v. Detroit, Belle Isle & Windsor Ferry Co., 154 Michigan, 545.
W. W.
V. Co. v. Black, 75 S.
E. Rep. 82.
85. Shubert v. Nixon Amusement Co., 83 Atl. Rep.
309. Taylor v. Cohn, 47 Oregon, 538, 540. People v. Flynn, 114 App. Div. 578, 189 N. Y. 180.
We see no reason for declining to follow the commonly accepted rule. The fact that the purchase of the ticket made a contract is not enough. A contract binds the person of the maker but does not create an interest in the property that it may.concern, unless it also operates as a conveyance. The ticket was not a conveyance of an interest in the race track, not only because it was not under seal but because by common' understanding it did not purport to have that effect. There would be obvious inconveniences if it were construed otherwise. But if it did not create such an interest, that is to say, a fight m rem valid against the landowner and third persons, the holder had no right to enforce specific performance by self-help. His only right was to sue upon the contract for the bread).
It is true that if the contract were incidental to a right of property either in the land or in goods upon the land, there might be an irrevocable right, of entry, but. when the contract stands by itself it must be either a conveyance or a license subject to be. revoked.
Judgment affirmed.
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Jacksonville Bulls Football, Ltd. v. Blatt, 535 So. 2d 626 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)…season ticketholders were not payments to bona fide creditors. Contrary to the trial court, we find this argument to be without merit.6 It is generally recognized that admission tickets are revocable licenses. See Marrone v. Washington Jockey Club, 227 U.S. 633, 33 S.Ct. 401, 57 L.Ed. 679 (1913) (race track ticket); Burnham v. Flynn, 189 N.Y. 180, 82 N.E. 169 (1987) (theater ticket); Collister v. Hayman, 183 N.Y. 250, 76 N.E. 20 (1905) (theater ticket); Bickett v. Buffalo Bills, Inc., 122 Misc.2d 880, 472…1 / 2
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Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (U.S. 1946)…private property against the will of the owner and contrary to the law of the state so long as the only objection to his presence is that he is exercising an asserted right to spread there his religious views. See Marrone v. Washington Jockey Club, 227 U. S. 633. This is the first case to extend by law the privilege of religious exercises beyond public places or to private places without the assent of the owner. Compare Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141. As the rule now announced permits this intrusion, w…
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Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (U.S. 1963)…10 Mews’ Dig. Eng. Cas. L. to ' 1924, pp. 1463 et seq. Arterburn, supra, note 2. See also Abstract Investment Co. v. Hutchinson, 204 Cal. App. 2d 242, 251, 22 Cal. Rptr. 309, 317; 10 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 401. See Marrone v. Washington Jockey Club, 227 U. S. 633; Madden v. Queens County Jockey Club, 296 N. Y. 249, 72 N. E. 2d 697; Alpaugh v. Wolverton, 184 Va. 941, 36 S. E. 2d 906; Nance v. Mayflower Tavern, 106 Utah 517, 150 P. 2d 773. Wyman, op. cit., supra, note 2, §§ 1, 2-16, 330; Schouler, op. cit., s…
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