Case Name: The State of Ohio v. Cincinnati Fertilizer Company
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1874-12
Citations: 24 Ohio St. 611
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State of Ohio v. Cincinnati Fertilizer Company.
Judges: Hay, C. J., McIlvaine, White, and Res., JJ., concurring.
Reporter: Ohio State Reports, New Service
Volume: 24
Pages: 611–614

Head Matter:
The State of Ohio v. Cincinnati Fertilizer Company.
A corporation is not a “ person ” within tbe meaning of tbe act of April 15, 1851, to prevent nuisances, and therefore not liable as such to be indicted and punished for violation of the provisions of said act.
Exception by the prosecuting attorney to the opinion of the Common Pleas of Hamilton county.
The Cincinnati Fertilizer Company, a corporation of Hamilton county, was indicted under the act of April 15, .1857 (S. & C. 880), for erecting and keeping up a nuisance in the city of Cincinnati. The court sustained a demurrer to thi3 indictment, on the ground that the provisions of the act do not apply to or embrace corporation's, the word “person” in the act meaning a natural person only. To this decision of the court the prosecuting attorney excepted, and the case is brought here under the provisions of the criminal code (66 Ohio L. 810), for the opinion of this court.
(r. JS. Pugh, E. S. Throop, and J. D. Brannan, for the prosecution:
Can a corporation aggregate be indicted upon the act of April 15,1857, for the prevention of nuisances?
All crimes, in Ohio, are defined by statute; and the word “person” certainly includes a corporation. Planter’s Bank v. Andrews, 8 Porter, 404; The State v. Bank of Maryland, 6 Gill & Johns. 205; Carey v. Commissioners of Montgom ery County, 19 Ohio, 245; 1 Ohio St. 463; 12 Pet. 134; Rex v. Gardner, 1 Cowp. 79; L. C. & C. R. R. Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497; Marshall v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 16 How. 314; Covington Drawbridge Co. v. Shepherd, 20 How. 227; 21 How. 112; 7 Wal. 118; United States v. Amedy, 11 Wheat. 392; 2 Institutes, 736; 1 Modern, 163; Knox v. Protection Ins. Co., 9 Conn. 430; People v. Utica Ins. Co., 15 Johns. 358; Bushel v. Commonwealth Ins. Co., 15 S. & R. 173.
A corporation, then, is a person within the purview of the statute, and we shall show that there is nothing in the nature of a corporation which prevents its being indicted.
The idea that a corpoi’ation can not be indicted in any case, rests on the same misapprehension of authority, and of principle, as the idea, once prevalent, that a corporation aggregate could not be sued for a tort, or, at least, directly in trespass.
A corporation can be sued in tort. Yarborough v. Bank of England, 16 East, 6; Maund v. Monmouth Canal Co., 1 Car. & M. 606; Smith v. Birmingham Gas Co., 1 Ad. & E. 526; Railway Co. v. Broom, 6 Exch. 314; Chilton v. London Railway Co., 16 M. & W. 212; Green v. London General Omnibus Co., 7 C. B., N. S. 290; Whitfield v. Southeastern Railway Co., El., B. & E. 115; P. W. & B. R. R. Co. v. Quigley, 21 How. 202; Chestnut Hill, etc., Co. v. Rutter, 4 S. &.R. 6; Goodspeed v. The East Haddam Bank, 22 Conn. 530; Moore v. Fitchburg R. R. Co. et al., 4 Gray, 465; Thayer v. Boston, 19 Pick. 511; Tipping v. St. Helen’s Smelting Co., 4 B.. & S. 608.
A corporation can be indicted for a public wrong. Regina v. Birmingham and Gloucester R. R., 9 Car. & P. 469; 1 Gal. & Dav. 457; 2 Ib. 236; S. C., 3 Ad. & E., N. S. 223; Regina v. Great North of Eng. R. R. Co., 9 Q. B. 315; 60 Penn. St. 371; 2 Gray, 339; The State v. The Morris, etc., Co., 3 Zab. 360; State v. Vermont Central Railroad Co., 27 Vt. 103; Susquehanna and Bath Turnpike Co. v. People, 15 Wend. 267, affirmed in 4 Wal. 657; Weightman v. Corporation of Washington, 1 Black, 39; Nebraska City v. Campbell, 2 Black, 590; State v. Commissioners of Public Roads, Walk. (Miss.) 368; A. & A. on Corp., secs. 379-389, 394-396; 1 Bennett & Heard’s Leading Cases, 2 ed. 174.
This should be so from public policy. If corporations in Ohio are not indictable for maintaining a nuisance, then any number of persons, not less than five, can, by forming themselves into a corporation, escape liability for acts for which they would be punished as private persons.
W. B. Caldwell, for the defense:
That a corporate body can be charged with a crime, and tried as a, criminal, is contrary to all our reasoning on the subject. It sets aside the very fundamental principle on which criminal law is founded. A-corporation is incapable of reasoning as to right or wrong, and hence can not be a criminal. That a corporation has no soul, although stale from frequent repetition, is, nevertheless, true, Orr v. The Bank of the United States, 1 Ohio, 36; Foote v. The City of Cincinnati, 9 Ohio, 31.
The idea of prosecuting a corporation by indictment we have received from the common law, and yet in Ohio we have repudiated the whole common-law definition of crimes. Whatever is not defined in our statute-book, can not be punished as a crime.
There is nothing in the statute of 1857 that indicates that the legislature intended to include within its provisions a corporation.
The word “ person ” means a human being, and nothing else. Webster’s Dictionary.
A corporation, by figure of speech, may be called a person, but it is' an artificial person. When the word “ persons” is spoken of in legislative acts, natural persons will be intended, unless something appear in the context to show that it applies to artificial persons. 1 Scam. 178.
No provision is made in the statute for making effectual a prosecution against a corporate company. The company could not come into court. The legislature could devise nc means that would bring it. They could bring in the charter, but it would lie there inanimate, as any other piece of paper. No officer or member of tbe company is required or authorized to plead. Without further legislation, according to all our ideas of judicial proceeding, trial, conviction, and judgment are impossible.
When we consider that most of our criminal laws can not, by possibility, be applied to a corporate body, it would certainly be a novel state of things if our courts had, in each case, without other criterion, to determine whether a particular statute applied to corporations or not.

Opinion:
Welch, J.
We think the court below was right. Criminal laws are to be construed strictly in favor of the accused. In its primary sense, the word "person" means a natural person only. I know of no criminal statute in Ohio where the word has been held to apply to a corpora-ration; nor do I know of any case where an attempt has before been made in this state to indict a corporation. We have no common-law crimes in Ohio, and the whole theory and machinery of our administration of criminal law seem adapted only to the prosecution and punishment of natural persons. There is no provision of law for bringing an indicted party into court by summons, or otherwise than by actual arrest of his person. Under such a state of legislation and practice, the legislature could not have intended, in the use of the word " person," which is found in almost every criminal law of the state, to authorize an indictment against a corporation for this particular offense, without any special or further provision as to the liability of corporations, or the mode of proceeding against them.
Exceptions overruled.
Hay, C. J., McIlvaine, White, and Res., JJ., concurring.