ILLINOIS ex rel. LISA MADIGAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF ILLINOIS v. TELEMARKETING ASSOCIATES, INC., et al. (538 U.S. 600)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 5, 2003 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 538 U.S. 600 · 123 S. Ct. 1829
- Decided
- May 5, 2003
- Term
- October Term 2002
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the amenability of for-profit fundraising corporations to suit by the Attorney General of Illinois for fraudulent charitable solicitations. The controversy arises from the fundraisers’ contracts with a charitable nonprofit corporation organized to advance the welfare of Vietnam veterans; under the contracts, the fundraisers were to retain 85 percent of the proceeds of their fundraising endeavors. The State Attorney General’s complaint alleges that the fundraisers defrauded members of the public by falsely representing that “a significant amount of each dollar donated would be paid over to [the veterans organization] for its [charitable] purposes while in fact the [fundraisers] knew that ... 15 cents or less of each dollar would be available” for those purposes. App. 9, ¶ 34. Complementing that allegation, the complaint states that the fundraisers falsely represented that “the funds donated would go to further . . . charitable purposes,” id., at 8, ¶ 29, when in fact “the amount . . . paid over to charity was merely incidental to the fund raising effort,” which was conducted primarily “for the private pecuniary benefit of” the fundraisers, id., at 9, ¶ 35. The question presented is whether those allegations state a claim for relief that can survive a motion to dismiss. In accord with the Illinois trial and…
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