Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/365/146/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-01-22 23:13:52
Document Index: 340615869

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3731', '§ 302', '§ 3731', '§ 302', '§ 302', '§ 3731']

Judgment set aside and case remanded. chanrobles.com-red
it was determined that chanrobles.com-red
From this oral ruling, the Government brought the case here by direct appeal pursuant to the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3731. The sole question presented in its Jurisdictional Statement is "whether a loan of money comes within the . . . prohibitions" of § 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947. [Footnote 5] Briefs and oral argument in this Court proceeded upon the assumption that this question, and only this question, was properly raised by the record, and that the question, thus shaped, presupposed the substantial reality and bona fides of the "loan." Counsel for the Government, in response to questions from the bench, asserted that, in light of the framing of the issues on this direct appeal, the Government's trial theory would have to be that the Beck-Fruehauf-Seymour transaction was an incontestable, good faith loan at a fair rate of interest, and that such other circumstances of the transaction as the lack of collateral would be immaterial. However, in a subsequent communication chanrobles.com-red
On this record, the question put to the Court for our direct review under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, is left unclear. An indictment cast in statutory language has been dismissed for failure to charge an offense within the meaning of the legislation whose words it employs, on the ground (as expressed in the ruling of the District Court) that the Government's trial memorandum constituted a "judicial admission that the transaction was a loan." The portions of the trial memorandum upon which this ruling rests establish, at most, that, approximately a year after the Fruehauf-Seymour group transferred $200,000 to Beck, Beck transferred $200,000 back to the Fruehauf-Seymour group, with $4,000 "interest," "approximately half of the interest due." On the basis of such facts, putting aside, of course, all questions of variance between indictment and proof that might emerge at a trial, seemingly the Government might have attempted to make out violations of § 302 on any of a number of alternative theories: (1) that the "loan" was a sham, a mere ruse and covering device intended to pass from Fruehauf and Seymour to Beck a gift or bribe of money; (2) that, irrespective of intention, the acceptance by the Fruehauf-Seymour group of $200,000 plus $4,000 interest in satisfaction of Beck's obligation to repay the "loan" with twice chanrobles.com-red
that amount of interest constituted a forbidden delivery of the unpaid interest to Beck; (3) that, irrespective of the terms of Beck's note, the loan of a large sum of money at a rate of interest significantly lower than the going commercial rate effected a delivery to Beck of the difference between the interest payable at a commercial rate and the interest agreed on; (4) that, irrespective of the interest rate, the transaction -- by which Fruehauf and Seymour made available a large, unsecured loan which Beck could not have gotten through normal financing channels -- resulted in the delivery to Beck of a "thing of value," namely, the benefit of having the money in hand; (5) that, irrespective of the particular incidents of this transaction, all loans, as such, violate the statute, either because the use of money is itself a "thing of value" which may not in any case be delivered by an employer to his employees' representative, even in consideration of the payment of interest, under the statute, or because every loan, qua loan, comports the "delivery" of the thing loaned, which delivery (regardless of repayment) violates § 302. [Footnote 6] However, the District Court's ruling that, by admission of the Government, the transaction was a "loan," appears to mean that, in light of its trial memorandum, the Government is foreclosed from pursuing some, probably most, of these theories. Which among them the court thus viewed as closed remains uncertain. On the other hand, in a representation to this Court, the Solicitor General does not leave it unequivocally clear, so as to preclude controversy in the lower court were the case to be allowed to go to trial, which (if not all) of the theories he would regard as still open. The only issue chanrobles.com-red
Nor does the record raise questions concerning the sufficiency of the indictment which would require, in an appropriate case, that the case be sent to the Court of Appeals, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731. For this is not a case in which the District Court has construed the allegations of an indictment, or limited the scope of the Government's presentation by construction of a bill of chanrobles.com-red