Olin R. Moyle

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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 is best known for 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.

Moyle had been a member of Pastor Charles Taze Russell's Bible Students since about the year 1910. In 1935 he and his wife Phoebe sold their home and belongings and moved their family from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin to 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.

In 1939, after living at Bethel for four years, Moyle wrote an open letter of resignation to Joseph F. Rutherford, ^[1] second President of the Watchtower Society, to complain about some of the excessive and inappropriate behavior he had witnessed from some members of the Bethel family, including Rutherford himself.^[2] Prior to this, Rutherford and Moyle had practiced law together, and had represented the Society jointly in various lawsuits.^[3]

Following Moyle's resignation, departure from Bethel, and return to his home congregation in Wisconsin, Rutherford 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."^[4]

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.

— Joseph F. Rutherford, Watchtower magazine, 1939-10-15

[edit] Lawsuit

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 Rutherford’s Watchtower magazine article. He won his suit, and the court awarded him $30,000 in damages, which was later reduced to $15,000 on appeal in 1944.^[5]

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.