United States v. Ed Lange, Doing Business as Sun West, (Two Cases). United States of America v. Commander Associates, Inc., Doing Business as Dsi

These three cases consolidated on appeal involve the procedures whereby dealers in erotic magazines and materials are ordered not to mail such literature to persons who deem them objectionable. Commander Associates, Inc. (Commander) and Ed Lange, doing business as Sun West, Inc. (Sun West), in one of the two cases against him (Sun West, Number One), appeal from summary judgments granted for the government, enforcing Post Office prohibitory orders. In the third case (Sun West, Number Two), Lange appeals from a judgment after trial to a district judge, which enforced similar orders. We affirm the summary judgment against Commander and the judgment against Lange in Sun West, Number Two, on all counts. In Sun West, Number One, we affirm the summary judgment on counts two, four and five and we reverse the other counts.

The statute under which appellants were sued is 39 U.S.C. § 4009 , “whereby any householder may insulate himself from advertisements that offer for sale ‘matter which the addressee in his sole discretion believes to be erotically arousing or sexually provocative.’ 39 U.S.C. § 4009 (a) . . . ” Rowan v. United States Post Office Dept., 397 U.S. 728, 730 , 90 S.Ct. 1484,…