 In 1951, he gained national attention by accepting the "Atherton" case, in which a young telegraph operator had been accused of negligently causing a train crash by omitting crucial information from a message.Twenty-one people were killed, mostly Canadian troops bound for Korea.Diefenbaker paid $1,500 and sat a token bar examination to join the Law Society of British Columbia to take the case, and gained an acquittal, prejudicing the jury against the Crown prosecutor and pointing out a previous case in which interference had caused information to be lost in transmission.