Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/335/355
Timestamp: 2014-07-26 00:10:10
Document Index: 521090784

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 334', '§ 352', '§ 304', '§ 303', '§ 333', '§ 304', '§ 304']

UNITED STATES v. URBUTEIT. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews UNITED STATES v. URBUTEIT.
335 U.S. 355 (69 S.Ct. 112, 93 L.Ed. 61)
UNITED STATES v. URBUTEIT.
Argued: Oct. 13, 14, 1948.
Decided: Nov. 22, 1948
The United States filed a lib l under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 52 Stat. 1044, 21 U.S.C. 334, 21 U.S.C.A. § 334, seeking seizure of 16 machines labeled 'Sinuothermic.' The libel alleged that the device was misbranded within the meaning of the Act, 52 Stat. 1050, 21 U.S.C. 352(a), 21 U.S.C.A. § 352(a), in that representations in a leaflet entitled 'The Road to Health' relative to the curative and therapeutic powers of the device in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment and prevention of disease were false and misleading. It charged that the leaflet had accompanied the device in interstate commerce.
The power to condemn is contained in § 304(a) and is confined to articles 'adulterated or misbranded when introduced into or while in interstate commerce'.
We do not, however, read that provision as requiring the advertising matter to travel with the machine. The reasons of policy which argue against that in the case of criminal prosecutions under § 303, 21 U.S.C.A. § 333, are equally forcible when we come to libels under § 304(a). Moreover, the common sense of the matter is to view the interstate transaction in its entiretythe purpose of the advertising and its actual use. In this case it is plain to us that the movements of machines and leaflets in interstate commerce were a single interrelated activity, not separate or isolated ones. The Act is not concerned with the purification of the stream of commerce in the abstract. The problem is a practical one of consumer protection, not dialectics. The fact that the false literature leaves in a separate mail does not save the article from being misbranded. Where by functional standards the two transactions are integrated, the requirements of § 304(a) are satisfied, though the mailings or shipments are at different times.