Case Name: WEEDS, INC., ET AL. v. UNITED STATES
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1921-02-28
Citations: 255 U.S. 109
Docket Number: No. 558
Parties: WEEDS, INC., ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.
Judges: ' Mr. Justice Day took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 255
Pages: 109–113

Head Matter:
WEEDS, INC., ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.
ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.
No. 558.
Argued October 19, 20, 1920.
Decided February 28, 1921.
Section 4 of the'Food Control Act is unconstitutional, bécause of its uncertainty, not'only in the clause penalizing sales of necessaries at “unjust or unreasonable rates or charges” (United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., ante, 81), but also in the clause penalizing conspiracies to exact “excessive prices.”
Reversed.
Plaintiffs in error were convicted, under § 4 of the Food Control Act, of conspiracy to exact excessive prices for wearing apparel, and, in furtherance of the conspiracy, of putting on sale in a store various articles of clothing at prices varying from. 110 to 194 per cent, in advance of cost; and also of making sales of various suits of clothes at unreasonable prices.
Mr. Charles E. Hughes, with whom Mr. Harvey D. Hitman, Mr. Thomas B. Kattell and Mr. Charles E. Hughes, Jr., were on the brief, for plaintiffs in error.
The Solicitor General for the United States.

Opinion:
Mr. Chief Justice White
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiffs in error, having been convicted and sentenced under an indictment containing eight counts, one of which, the sixth, was eliminated at the trial, prosecute this direct writ of error. All.the counts charged violations of the fourth section of the Lever Act, the first, a conspiracy under the section to exact and to aid and abet in exacting excessive prices for certain necessaries, that is, articles of wearing apparel; and each of the others a specific sale of such an article at an unjust and unreasonable rate or charge.
The indictment was demurred to because of its repugnancy to the Constitution upon these grounds: (1) Want of power in Congress because of a state of peace; (2) that the provisions in question -were so vague and wanting in .standard of criminality as to constitute a mere delegation by Congress . of legislative power in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and, furthermore, because, by virtue of the exemptions which they contained, they denied to defendants the equal protection of the laws. The demurrer was overruled and, at the trial which followed, the grounds of demurrer were again held to be without merit and the questions which it presented were saved and are pressed in the argument at bar as grounds for reversal.
As the only difference between the charges in the Cohen Grocery Co. Case, ante, 81, and those in this is the fact that here, in one of the counts, there was a charge of conspiracy to . exact excessive prices, it follows that the ruling in the Cohen Case is decisive here unless the provision as to conspiracy to exact excessive prices is sufficiently specific to create a standard and to inform the accused of the accusation against him, and thus make it not amenable to the ruling in the Cohen Case. But, as we are of the opinion that there is no ground for such distinction, but, on the contrary, that the charge as to conspiracy to exact excessive prices is equally as wanting in standard and equally as vague, as the provision as to unjust and unreasonable rates and charges dealt with in the Cohen Case, it- follows, for reasons stated in that case, that the judgment in this must be reversed and the case remanded with directions to set aside the sentence .and quash the indictment.
Reversed.
' Mr. Justice Day took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.