Court Opinion

ID: 9637729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:17:27.51391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:59.809711
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(Specially concurring).
I agree with my brother SIBLEY that in this case, “Zeal for enforcement, I think, is here outrunning common sense and the true intent of the law.” I agree with my brother SIBLEY, too, that the case does not involve any charge that the product is injurious to health or deleterious. The opinion adduced by the judge himself and set out in the note to the majority opinion is therefore immaterial and irrelevant to the issues in this case. Further being merely the statement of the opinion of the witness as to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is hearsay and inadmissible and carries no weight whatever. I cannot therefore agree with the statement in the majority opinion that there is positive and uncontradicted testimony that the use of mineral oil as a food, as in thfs case, was, or could be harmful.
Notwithstanding, however, my opinion that the whole proceeding is a tempest in a teapot and that its bringing was an administrative error, I am compelled to agree with the views of my brother HOLMES that, within the meaning of the statute under which the suit was brought, section 342 (b) (3) and (4), the article in question was adulterated. It was adulterated under sub-sec. (b) (3) by having its inferiority to butter concealed by making it look like butter. It was adulterated under subsec. (b) (4) by being so colored as to “make it ap*254pear better or of greater value,” that is by making it appear to be melted butter. I, therefore, concur in the conclusion the majority opinion reaches that the cause must be reversed and remanded with directions.