1917, which restricted trade with countries hostile to the United States. Eventually, Ruffino appealed the conviction to the Circuit Court of Appeals 9th District in 1940; however, the judgment of the lower courts was upheld based on the President's executive orders and the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. Ruffino, a resident of Sutter Creek in California-gold country, was convicted of possessing 78 ounces of gold and was sentenced to 6 months in jail, paid a $500 fine, and had his gold seized. Foreigners also had gold confiscated and were forced to accept paper money for their gold. The Uebersee Finanz-Korporation, a Swiss banking company, had $1,250,000 in gold coins for business use. The Uebersee Finanz-Korporation entrusted the gold to an American firm for safekeeping, and the Swiss were shocked to find that their gold was confiscated. The Swiss made appeals, but they were denied; they were entitled to paper money but not their gold. The Swiss company would have lost 40% of their gold's value if they had tried to buy the same amount of gold with the paper money that they received in exchange for their confiscated gold. Another type of de facto gold seizure occurred as a result of the various executive orders involving bonds, gold certificates and private contracts. Private contracts or bonds that were written in terms of gold were to be paid in paper currency instead of gold although all of the contracts and the bonds proclaimed that they were payable in gold, and at least one, the fourth Liberty Bond, was a federal instrument. The plaintiffs in all cases received paper money, instead of gold, despite the contracts' terms. The contracts and the bonds were written precisely to avoid currency debasement by requiring payment in gold coin. The paper money which was redeemable in gold was instead irredeemable based on Nortz v. United States, . The consolidated Gold Clause Cases were the following: Perry v. United States, U.S. v. Bankers' Trust Co., 294 U.S. 240 (1935) Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., Nortz v. United States, The Supreme Court upheld all seizures as constitutional, with Justices James Clark McReynolds, Willis Van Devanter, George Sutherland, and Pierce Butler dissenting. The four justices were labelled the "Four Horsemen" by the press, as their conservative views were in opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal supported by the press. Subsequent events and abrogation The Gold Reserve Act of