Opinion ID: 2310114
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: creation and removal of presumptions

Text: We turn now to the second question where we are asked whether § 6-13-4 violates the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. That section reads as follows: Evidence of any advertisement, offer to sell or sale of any item of merchandise by any retailer or wholesaler at less than cost to him, as herein defined, shall be prima facie evidence of intent to injure competitors or destroy competition. The specific question is whether there is a constitutional repugnancy by reason of the legislative creation of a presumption of guilt and a consequent removal of the presumption of innocence of an accused person. The question as phrased relates to whether the statutory declaration that evidence of the forbidden act shall constitute prima facie evidence of the requisite intent results in a violation of those basic principles of the criminal law which impose upon the state the burden of proving a crime beyond a reasonable doubt and endow an accused with a presumption of innocence until proof of his guilt shall have been established. It is concerned solely with the constitutional rights obtaining in criminal proceedings and it is neither germane nor is its resolution indispensably necessary to a determination of these causes which are equitable in nature. Lonsdale Co. v. City of Providence, 63 R.I. 28, 7 A.2d 291; State v. Smith, 56 R.I. 168, 184 A. 494. The rule of germaneness and indispensable necessity, although laid down in cases certified to us under what is now § 9-24-27, applies equally to those certified under § 9-24-26 for we follow the same rules in determining the propriety of the certification under either section. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co. v. Davis, 68 R.I. 461, 464, 29 A.2d 647. It is of no assistance to respondents to argue that the question might have been framed in such a manner as to endow it with relevance in these proceedings, or that we should consider whether in equitable proceedings under the Act a constitutional question exists as to the natural and rational connection between proof of a sale at less than cost and the establishment thereby of a prima facie case as to the required intent which would make the act enjoinable. That is not the question put to us. Simply put, we are asked to determine whether the prima facie nature of the case established by proof of a sale at less than cost violates the constitutional rights of an accused in a criminal proceeding. Such a question is unrelated to a proceeding for equitable relief. It is not germane or indispensably necessary to a determination in these proceedings and will therefore not be answered.