Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/215/50/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-20 22:29:43
Document Index: 419968503

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 41', '§ 2', '§ 1']

UNITED STATES V. UNION SUPPLY CO., 215 U. S. 50 - Volume 215 - 1909 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 215 > UNITED STATES V. UNION SUPPLY CO., 215 U. S. 50 (1909) > Full Text
UNITED STATES V. UNION SUPPLY CO., 215 U. S. 50 (1909)
United States v. Union Supply Company
Argued October 13, 14, 1909
Where a penal statute prescribes two independent penalties, it will be construed as meaning to inflict them so far as possible, and, if one is
Page 215 U. S. 51
impossible, the guilty defendant is not to escape the other which is possible.
Page 215 U. S. 53
This is an indictment of a corporation for willfully violating
Page 215 U. S. 54
the sixth section of the Act of Congress of May 9, 1902, c. 784, § 6, 32 Stat.193, 197. That section requires "wholesale dealers" in oleomargarine, etc., to keep certain books and to make certain returns. It then goes on as follows:
The argument for the defendant in error is drawn from an earlier decision by the same court. It is that § 5 applies in express terms to corporations, and gives the court discretionary power to punish by either fine or imprisonment, or both, whereas, in § 6, both punishments are imposed in all cases, and corporations are not mentioned; that it is impossible to imprison a corporation, and that the statute warrants no sentence that does not comply with its terms. United States v. Braun & Fitts, 158 F. 456. We are of opinion that this reasoning is unsound. In the first place, taking up the argument drawn from § 5, that corporations were omitted intentionally from the requirements of § 6, it is to be noticed that the sixth section of the present act copies its requirements from the Act of October 1, 1890, c. 1244, § 41, 26 Stat. 567, 621, which did not contain the penal clause. In its earlier form the enactment clearly applied to corporations, and when the same words were repeated in the later act, it is not to be supposed that their meaning was changed. The words "wholesale dealers" are as apt to embrace corporations here as they are in § 2, requiring such dealers to pay certain taxes. We have no doubt that they were intended to embrace them. The words "any person" in the penal clause are as broad as "wholesale dealers" in the part prescribing the duties. U.S.Rev.Stat. § 1. It is impossible to believe that corporations were intentionally
Page 215 U. S. 55
excluded. They are as much within the mischief aimed at as private persons, and as capable of a "willful" breach of the law. New York Central & Hudson River R. Co. v. United States, 212 U. S. 481. If the defendant escapes, it does so on the single ground that, as it cannot suffer both parts of the punishment, it need not suffer one.
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