Court Opinion

ID: 9644085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:47:54.763992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:08.133821
License: Public Domain

RIDDICK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
In No. 13,110, Phelps v. United States, No. 13,112, Lechnyr v. United States, and No. 13,113, Hicks v. United States, I concur in the result.
I am unable to concur in the conclusions reached in No. 13,111, Peters v. United States, on the question of immunity from prosecution1 granted by section 202 of the Emergency Price Control Act, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 922.
*877By section 202(b) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 922(b), the Administrator is authorized to require any person engaged in a business dealing with any commodity to furnish information under oath or affirmation or otherwise on demand of the Administrator, to keep the records and documents required by the orders of the Administrator, and to permit the inspection of the records required to be kept. “The Administrator may administer oaths and affirmations and may, whenever necessary, by subpena require any such person to appear and testify or to appear and produce documents, or both, at any designated place.” Section 202(g), 50 U.S.C.A.Ap-endix, § 922(g), provides: “No person shall be excused from complying with any requirements under this section because of his privilege against self-incrimination, but the immunity provisions of the Compulsory Testimony Act of February 11, 1893 (U.S. C., 1934 edition, title 49, sec. 46), shall apply with respect to any individual who specifically claims such privilege.”
The Compulsory Testimony Act of February 11, 1893, 49 U.S.C.A. § 46, provides that no person shall be excused from the production of records and documents in response to a subpoena commanding their production on the ground that the records, if produced, may tend to incriminate liim or subject him to a penalty or forfeiture, but that “no person shall be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any transaction, matter or thing, concerning which he may testify, or produce evidence, documentary or otherwise,” in obedience to a subpoena issued by lawful authority. If, as appellant Peters asserts, he specifically claimed the exemption provided by the Act of February 11, 1893, we may not deny his claim of immunity from prosecution because he was not sworn or because of the “required records doctrine”, unless we read into the Act something that Congress declined to put in it.
It must be conclusively presumed that Congress in referring specifically to the Compulsory Testimony Act of February 11, 1893, and in providing that the provisions of that Act should apply to claims of immunity of the character presented here, did so deliberately and with full knowledge of the “required records doctrine” and of the different provisions of the amendment to the Act adopted June 30, 1906, 49 U.S.C.A. § 48, limiting the immunity granted to natural persons who produced records and documents under oath. “It is not for us to add to the legislation what Congress pretermitted.” United States v. Monia, 317 U.S. 424, 430, 63 S.Ct. 409, 412, 87 L.Ed. 376. The immunity granted is an immunity from prosecution. To say that in the Act Congress did not grant the immunity which the language of the Act plainly gives, because it was not compelled to do so, is but another way of saying that Congress should not have granted the immunity which it has granted, and thus to invade the legislative field.
The subpoena in response to which Peters delivered his records called not only for all “required records,” but for all of the records of the Nelson Tire Company and the Island Manufacturing Company whether or not subject to inspection by the Administrator. Among the records which Peters was not required to keep and which the Administrator’s agent received were a check of the Island Manufacturing Company to Dolcrno, also charged as a member of the conspiracy, and Peters’ records of transactions with Phelps and Hicks, convicted as members of the conspiracy.
That the subpoenas were addressed to the Nelson Tire Company and the Island Manufacturing Company is of no significance on the question of Peters’ immunity. NeJ-ther of the so-called companies was a corporation. Their titles were trade names under which Peters carried on his business operations, in the case of the Nelson Tire Company the business of selling tires and tubes, and in the case of the Island Manufacturing Company the business of manufacturing boots and reliners. Under Minnesota law (Minn. St. 1945 and M.S.A. § .333.01 et seq.) any person conducting a business in Minnesota under a trade name is required to file in the office of the clerk of the district court of the county in which the business is conducted a certificate setting forth the tradename adopted and the real name of the person conducting the business. Certificates were filed by both *878the Nelson Tire Company and the Island Manufacturing Company showing Peters as the sole owner of the Nelson Tire Com.pany and Greta O. Peters as the sole owner of the Island Manufacturing Company-. Greta O. Peters is the wife of appellant Peters. By the Minnesota statutes, however, the certificate is only “presumptive” evidence of the ownership of the business.
In this case the indictment was drawn and the case prosecuted in the district court on the theory that appellant Peters was the owner and operator of both so-called companies. According to the Government’s proof the conspiracy began with the appointment of Peters as Deputy Tire Examiner, so that Peters might acquire a monopoly of the business of processing condemned tires. Peters purchased from another the -necessary equipment for the purpose of operating such a business. The indictment charged that Peters was engaged.in this business and the proof shows that he was so engaged. Among the overt acts charged were the payments of money by Peters to Dokmo, Phelps, Hicks, and Lechnyr. The proof showed that these payments were made by checks of the Island Manufacturing Company signed by Peters. The subpoena requiring the production of the records of the Island Manufacturing Company was served not upon Greta O. Peters but upon -appellant Peters. To say that Peters was not the Island Manufacturing Company and that its records were not his personal records is to ignore ' the facts which the evidence established and upon which the Government relied for conviction of those charged.
On the record in this case whether Peters specifically claimed his immunity at the time his records were produced in response to the Administrator’s subpoenas was a question for the jury. Peters testified that on being served with the subpoenas he called .his attorney, and on the , advice received in response to the call he told the Administrator’s agent that he was compelled to produce the records required by the subpoenas but that he was not to waive any .of his rights. The Administrator’s agent testified that he had no recollection of such a statement by Peters, but that he could not say that it was npt m.ade, There were other witnesses present not called-by either the Government or Peters. One of the witnesses was an employee of Peters and the other was an investigator representing the Administrator. Whether Peters said anything or made the statement which he claimed he made was, in the circumstances, a question of fact, never determined at the trial. If Peters made the statement to the Administrator’s agent which he said he made, he sufficiently complied with the Act’s requirement that he specifically claim immunity if he desired to avail himself of it.
I would reverse the judgment in No. 13,111 and remand for further proceedings.

 Only two other cases deal with the precisa question involved here, and they reach opposite results. See United States v. Shapiro, 2d Cir., 159 F.2d 890; In re Hoffman, D.C., 68 F.Supp. 53.