Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/373/405/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:21:37+00:00

Document:
An indictment under § 1 of the Elkins Act states an offense when it charges that a person has solicited a rebate from a common carrier respecting the transportation in interstate commerce of a shipper's property, even though it is not alleged that the rebate was for the benefit of the shipper. Pp. 373 U. S. 405-409.
judge, believing that the Act applies only where some "advantage or discrimination is practiced in favor of the shipper," ruled that the indictment did not charge an offense under the statute, and therefore must be dismissed. The case is properly here on appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3731.
"whereby any such property shall by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the tariffs published and filed by such carrier. . . ."
More unequivocal language would be hard to imagine. It strikes at any and every kind of rebate, no matter by whom or to whom given. Nowhere does the section say or imply that rebates are unlawful only if they are given to or are for the benefit of a shipper. It is a rebate, to whomever given, which the statutory language proscribes.
We have considered the statute before us in light of the salutary rule that criminal statutes should not by interpretation be expanded beyond their plain language. [Footnote 9] But neither can we interpret a statute so narrowly as to defeat its obvious intent. [Footnote 10] Congress, the Commission, and the public were concerned to make certain that, once a tariff had been published, no deviations whatever from that tariff would take place. Nowhere can we find support for the suggestion that some departures were to be checked while others were allowed. We would ignore the express language of the Elkins Act, the economic ills which gave rise to its passage, the objects which the framers of the statute had in mind, and the subsequent judicial enforcement of the Act if we limited its operation to only some kinds of rebates, or to only some people.
Congress wanted rates to be published and honored. It wanted rebates stopped. It used fitting language to accomplish that end. We hold that an indictment under § 1 of the Elkins Act states an offense when it charges that a person has solicited a rebate from a common carrier respecting the transportation in interstate commerce of a shipper's property, even though it is not alleged that the rebate was for the benefit of the shipper.
Annual Reports, Interstate Commerce Commission, Dec. 6, 1897, pp. 46-48, Dec. 24, 1900, p. 10, Jan. 17, 1902, p. 8.
Hearings on H.R. 146, 273, 2040, 5775, 8337, and 10930 before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce 197-199 (1902).
H.R.Rep. No. 3765, 57th Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1903). The bill passed the House by a vote of 250 to 6, 36 Cong.Rec. 2159 (1903), having already passed the Senate, 36 Cong.Rec. 1633-1634 (1903).
Union Pac. R. Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 450, 463 (1941). The lower courts soon after the passage of the Elkins Act rejected the argument that the Act reached only the carrier and the shipper, and held that it was immaterial that rebates were paid to someone other than the shipper. E.g., United States v. Milwaukee Refrigerator Transit Co., 145 F. 1007, 1012 (C.C.E.D.Wis. 1906); United States v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 152 F. 269, 273 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1907).
Howitt v. United States, 328 U. S. 189 (1946).
See United States v. Resnick, 299 U. S. 207, 209-210 (1936).
See United States v. Raynor, 302 U. S. 540, 552 (1938).

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