Myrland started looking into the legality of gifting clubs in September 1999, after police raided one such club in eastern Washington and seized $51,000 that participants claimed had been promised to charity; the search warrant alleged that securities fraud was being committed. Myrland wrote an opinion saying that the state's securities-fraud laws don't apply to the gifting club. Ever since, his reputation has spread to gifting clubs nationwide, including in Colorado, where his opinion on the state's consumer-protection laws is circulating among dinner party groups.
In it, he writes, "The recipient of a gift is under no obligation and owes nothing to the donor of the gift. The donor of the gift, therefore, is not receiving any 'opportunity or right to receive' anything when he or she gives away their property to a club or graduate of the program...The Supreme Court has held that gifts are contracts protected from state interference by the U.S. Constitution. If all participants in the club state in writing or in front of witnesses that their transfer is a gift, no state or local official has the authority to question the context of the transfer."
Lynn Bennett
Lynn Bennett
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Myrland, who claims that he's never participated in a gifting club himself, says that authorities who deny adults the right to carry out a gifting contract that they've willingly signed or to which they've verbally consented are exercising "a flagrant abuse of power."
Wendy agrees. "We're all getting smarter financially because of this, and now there are offshoot groups forming. I've started a women's financial-awareness group."
The six women in her group, which meets twice a month, are reading The Energy of Money, by Maria Nemeth, How to Attract Money, by Joseph Murphy, and Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom, by Robert Kiyosaki. "We have a lot to learn from men," Wendy says, explaining why a strictly female group is reading books by male authors. "[Kiyosaki] says in his book that when you invest, make sure your liabilities are lower than your assets."
For the first time in her life, Wendy says, she is saving money, depositing $100 a month into two mutual funds. "If it wasn't for the Dinner Party, I wouldn't have thought about money. I would have always thought that I was the victim of my financial status instead of the ruler.
"Women like this. It makes sense. I wonder why the authorities feel the need to protect us from something that's helping us," Wendy says. "We're smart people. We're aware of the risks. We're not sheep being led to the slaughter."
