Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/221/488
Timestamp: 2014-03-09 12:19:32
Document Index: 706457011

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 6', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 4', '§ 8']

UNITED STATES, Plaintiff in Error, v. O. A. JOHNSON. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews UNITED STATES, Plaintiff in Error, v. O. A. JOHNSON.
221 U.S. 488 (31 S.Ct. 627, 55 L.Ed. 823)
UNITED STATES, Plaintiff in Error, v. O. A. JOHNSON.
Argued: April 13, 1911.
[HTML] Solicitor General Lehmann, Messrs. Winfred T. Denison, George P. McCabe, and Loring C. Christie for plaintiff in error.
Argument of Counsel from pages 489-493 intentionally omitted
This is an indictment for delivering for shipment from Missouri to Washington, District of Columbia, packages and bottles of medicine bearing labels that stated or implied that the contents were effective in curing cancer, the defendant well knowing that such representations were false. On motion of the defendant, the district judge quashed the indictment (177 Fed. 313), and the United States brought this writ of error under the act of March 2, 1907, chap. 2564, 34 Stat. at L. 1246.
The question is whether the articles were misbranded within the meaning of § 2 of the food and drugs act of June 30, 1906, chap. 3915, 34 Stat. at L. 768, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1909, p. 1187, making the delivery of misbranded drugs for shipment to any other state or territory or the District of Columbia a punishable offense. By § 6 the term 'drug' includes any substance or mixture intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease. By § 8 the term 'misbranded' 'shall apply to all drugs or articles of food, . . . the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein, which shall be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is falsely branded as to the state, territory, or country in which it is manufactured or produced. . . . An article shall also be deemed to be misbranded: In case of drugs: First. If it be an imitation of, or offered for sale under the name of, another article. Second. In case of a substitution of contents . . . or if the package fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilid, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein.'
We lay on one side as quite unfounded the argument that the words 'statement which shall be misleading in any particular,' as used in the statute, do not apply to drugs at all,that the statements referred to are those 'regarding such article,' and that 'article' means article of food, mentioned by the side of drugs at the beginning of the section. It is enough to say that the beginning of the sentence makes such a reading impossible, and that 'article' expressly includes 'drugs,' a few lines further on in what we have quoted, not to speak of the reason of the thing. But we are of opinion that the phrase is aimed not at all possible false statements, but only at such as determine the identity of the article, possibly including its strength, quality, and purity, dealt within § 7. In support of our interpretation the first thing to be noticed is the second branch of the sentence: 'Or the ingredients or substances contained therein.' One may say with some confidence that in idiomatic English this half, at least, is confined to identity, and means a false statement as to what the ingredients are. Logically it might mean more, but idiomatically it does not. But if the false statement referred to is a mistatement of identity as applied to a part of its objects, idiom and logic unite in giving it the same limit when applied to the other branch, the article, whether simple or one that the ingredients compose. Again, it is to be noticed that the cases of misbranding, specifically mentioned, and following the general words that we have construed, are all cases analogous to the statement of identity, and not at all to inflated or false commendation of wares. The first is a false statement as to the country where the article is manufactured or produced,a matter quite unnecessary to specify if the preceding words had a universal scope, yet added as not being within them. The next case is that of imitation and taking the name of another article, of which the same may be said, and so of the next, a substitution of contents. The last is breach of an affirmative requirement to disclose the proportion of alcohol and certain other noxious ingredients in the package,again a matter of plain past history concerning the nature and amount of the poisons employed, not an estimate or prophecy concerning their effect. In further confirmation, it should be noticed that although the indictment alleges a wilful fraud, the shipment is punished by the statute if the article is misbranded, and that the article may be misbranded without any conscious fraud at all. It was natural enough to throw this risk on shippers with regard to the identity of their wares, but a very different and unlikely step to make them answerable for mistaken praise. It should be noticed still further that by § 4, the determinaton whether an article is misbranded is left to the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, which is most natural if the question concerns ingredients and kind, but hardly so as to medical effects.
The articles were labeled respectively 'Cancerine tablets,' 'Antiseptic tablets,' 'Blood purifier,' 'Special No. 4,' 'Cancerine No. 17,' and 'Cancerine No. 1,'the whole constituting what was termed in substance 'Dr. Johnson's Mild Combination Treatment for Cancer.' There were several counts in the indictment with respect to the different articles. The labels contained the words, 'Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906;' and some of the further statements were as follows:
In quashing the indictment, the district court construed the statute. The substance of the decision is found in the following words of the opinion: 'Having regard to the intendment of the whole act, which is to protect the public health against adulterated, poisonous, and deleterious food, drugs, etc., the labeling or branding of the bottle or container, as to the quantity or composition of 'the ingredients or substances contained therein, which shall be false or misleading,' by no possible construction can be extended to an inquiry as to whether or not the prescription be efficacious or worthless to effect the remedy claimed for it.' 177 Fed. 317. And question on this writ of error is whether or not this construction is correct. United States v. Keitel, 211 U. S. 370, 53 L. ed. 230, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 123.
It is strongly stated that the clause in § 8'or the ingredients or substances contained therein'has reference to identity, and that this controls the interpretation of the entire provision. This, in my judgment, is to ascribe an altogether undue weight to the wording of the clause and to overlook the context. The clause, it will be observed, is disjunctive. If Congress had intended to restrict the offense to misstatements as to identity, it could easily have said so. But it did not say so. To a draftsman with such a purpose, the language used would not naturally occur. Indeed, as will presently be shown, Congress refused, with the question up, so to limit the statute.
Finally, it appears, that in conference the bill was amended by inserting the word 'design, or device,' and also the words 'such article, or;' and thus the section became a part of the law in its present formcontaining the words:
Nor does it seem to me that any serious question arises in this case as to the power of Congress. I take it to be conceded that misbranding may cover statements as to strength, quality, and purity. But so long as the statement is not as to matter of opinion, but consists of a false representation of fact,in labeling the article as a cure when it is nothing of the sort from any point of view, but wholly worthless,there would appear to be no basis for a constitutional distinction. It is none the less descriptiveand falsely descriptiveof the article. Why should not worthless stuff, purveyed under false labels as cures, be made contraband of interstate commerce, as well as lottery tickets? Lottery Case (Champion v. Ames) 188 U. S. 331, 47 L. ed. 497, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 321, 13 Am. Crim. Rep. 561.
I entirely agree that in any case brought under the act for misbranding,by a false or misleading statement as to curative properties of an article,it would be the duty of the court to direct an acquittal when it appeared that the statement concerned a matter of opinion. Conviction would stand only where it had been shown that, apart from any question of opinion, the so-called remedy was absolutely worthless, and hence the label demonstrably false; but in such case it seems to me to be fully authorized by the statute.