By George W. Jarecke

One of the most famous April Fool’s jokes ended with the victim suing the jokers. Shortly before 1920, in northwest Louisiana, Carrie Nickerson’s neighbors fooled her into looking for that proverbial pot of gold. The story is a peculiarly American one, about a quest for easy fortune, earnest persistence, and, finally, litigation, and framed by what American literature calls “frontier humor.”

Miss Nickerson was at least a bit eccentric, having been an inmate of an insane asylum some twenty years before. She was also a relative of Burton and Lawson Deck. An old family story maintained that the two had buried a pot of gold coins on a place that was now owned by John W. Smith. She consulted with a fortuneteller who confirmed the story. He even provided her with a map showing its location.

Miss Nickerson and a couple of relatives and a fellow named Bushong, who some said was a suitor of Miss Nickerson’s, spent several months digging. Smith had not only granted cordial permission, but he let them stay at his house free of charge--perhaps, we can speculate, so that he could claim some percentage of what they found as a commission. They dug everywhere but were not rewarded.

Finally, three people--Smith’s daughter, a man referred to by the court in its opinion in the ensuing litigation as “William or ÔBud’ Baker,” and H.R. Hayes--decided to provide a pot of gold for the prospectors to discover. They found an old copper bucket, filled it with rocks and dirt, and buried it in on the property. They fastened the pot with two lids, putting between the two a note written by Hayes that instructed the finders not to open the lower lid for three days in order that all of the family’s heirs could be notified and gathered.

The burial was completed near the end of March. The idea was that the prospectors would find the pot on April First, making for a great April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately the digging wasn’t focused in the right place, so it was April 14 before the diggers found the pot.

Everyone rushed to the spot and even those who were in the know were as excited as Miss Nickerson and her innocent followers. The note was found and read. H.R. Hayes suggested having the pot carried to the bank at Cotton Valley, a few miles away, until the other relatives could be found. At the bank, a small glitch occurred. Mr. Gatling, the cashier, refused to give a receipt for “a pot of gold” because it was, after all, still covered by the lower lid, and he had no real way of knowing what was in it. Nevertheless the group left the pot in the bank’s safe-keeping.

The news spread, and Gatling and another bank employee decided that the best course was to examine the pot so that if it did contain gold they could take proper precautions. They opened the lid and discovered the truth. Unfortunately but inevitably, word leaked out, so nearly everyone knew about the hoax.

In the meantime, Miss Nickerson traveled some twenty miles to persuade an old friend, Judge R.C. Drew, to accompany her back to Cotton Valley to make sure that the pot was properly and ceremoniously opened. According to Judge Drew, he had already heard of the hoax, and he tried to convince Miss Nickerson not to count on coming into any fortune, but he finally consented to go. Meanwhile about a half dozen other relatives of Burton and Lawson Deck had been found.

A gathering surrounded the bank in Cotton Valley at 11 a.m. on Monday morning. Judge Drew, as spokesman for the family, asked Gatling to produce the pot so that they might open it and examine the contents.

When the pot was opened, Miss Nickerson saw the stones and dirt, and, convinced that she had been robbed, hurled the lid of the pot at Gatling. She was also enraged at H.R. Hayes, and flew at him with such violence that Hayes had to appeal to the others to restrain her.

Eventually the scene quieted, and the relatives slunk away, but not Miss Nickerson. She filed suit against H.R. Hayes, “William or ÔBud’ Baker,” John W. Smith, Miss Minnie Smith, Gatling, and a number of other persons not otherwise identified.

She claimed $15,000 damages for financial outlay, loss of business, mental and physical suffering, humiliation, and injury to reputation and social standing. It is odd that she doesn’t appear to have sued them in conversion, because the court says that, when she died two years later, she still believed that she had been robbed.

Her heirs were substituted as the plaintiffs. At a trial of the action, judgment was for all of the defendants, and Miss Nicker-son’s heirs appealed. The Louisi-ana Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment but awarded damages in the amount of only $500, given that the plaintiffs were no longer Miss Nickerson but those who, after all, hadn’t suffered the same humiliation. Despite the court’s failing to state any real legal theory, a kind of rough justice was done.

Thanks in part to this case, brought because of an April Fool’s joke gone bad, Miss Nickerson helped lay the foundation for the future tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Perhaps that has to be her satisfaction.