Court Opinion

ID: 8805371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 14:46:32.411802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:04:04.531207
License: Public Domain

EVANS, District Judge
(dissenting). I agree with much that is said in the opinion, but some questions, which seem to me to be of a decisive character, were not alluded to. One hundred and fifteen errors were assigned, many of which were not argued, and most of which were probably speculative, but among those argued were tiróse which raise the questions to which I have referred. In order to state clearly the grounds of the conclusion I have reached it is necessary to malee a preliminary statement of certain facts shown by the record.
Two indictments were returned against the railroad company, and they were heard together as one case. The trial before a jury began on March 2, 1915, and a great deal of testimony was heard. The second of the indictments was numbered 5435, and charged 30 separate offenses under the interstate commerce law. The first of the indictments, numbered 5434, also contained 30 counts, 12 of which charged that in 12 separate instances, and in respect to. each of 12 separate cars the railroad company had failed to collect demurrage charges, these separate failures being alleged to be concessions in rates of transportation unlawfully made to the shipper, viz., the National Fireproofing Company. After the trial had progressed for seven days indictment No. 5435 was withdrawn. The trial continued 15 days longer. At its conclusion, and after tire argument to the jury, the court dismissed 18 of the counts of that indictment. Upon the remaining 12 counts (each of which, properly considered, covered the simple charge of failing to collect demurrage on. a separate car) the case was submitted to the jury, and a verdict of guilty was returned upon each count. The charges efficiently made in these 12 counts are very simple, and presumably were of themselves of very easy solution, but in respect to the whole case a great mass of testimony had been introduced, a large part of which was objected to, and in many instances exceptions to the ruling of the court had been taken by the, railroad company. These exceptions are covered by the assignments of error. The 12 counts, separately, contained exaggerated statements of the number of days for which, in respect to each car the demurrage charges, had not been collected. This exaggeration was probably based upon the indefensible theory of “constructive placements” of cars. In point of fact, the record clearly shows that the real average was a little less than four days for each of the 12 cars. The testimony to which we have referred was more directly addressed to the charges made in counts other than the 12 now involved, though in its general terms it might seem to reach every phase of the case, but neither when indictment No. 5435 was withdrawn nor when tire court, after the argument before the jury, took out of the case 18 of the counts in indictment No. 5434, and told the jury not to regard any of those counts, was anything done by the court to show the jury that much of the testimony that had been heard should not have any weight in the con*363sideration of the issues on the 12 counts submitted to them. Our reason for saying this will be more clearly indicated further along.
In respect to the 12 counts it is certain that when they were submitted to the jury all the evidence previously heard remained in the case, although much of it had been objected to and the objections had been overruled and exceptions taken. So far as the jury could understand, all this testimony bore upon the remaining counts, and they had no guidance for discriminating its inapplicability. The parts of the evidence which were obviously prejudicial were: Hirst. That respecting certain embargoes established July 6, 1912, which might have greatly influenced the jury in what they did. Everything respecting these embargoes occurred some time after each of the cars referred to in the 12 counts had reached Detroit in due course. The question of an embargo upon freight outside of Detroit could not, we think, by any possibility, have been competent in respect to demurrage charges upon freights that had reached Detroit before an embargo was laid. Though, prima facie, incompetent, it remained in the case, and as we shall point out, was effectively used in another connection. Second. The numerous letters of Bemet, Ingalls and Rowley. This testimony, all left in the record and never taken from the jury, was bound to influence that body in its deliberations; and, third, the testimony relative to the inability of the National Fireproofing Company to unload shipments — in other words, testimony in respect to a certain congestion of traffic and in respect to the theory of “constructive placements.”
Not only did the court, over the objections of the defendant, admit the testimony as to the embargoes of July 6, 1912, and later, to which we. have referred, but by its charge made after all but the 12 counts had been eliminated, the jury were expressly instructed to consider that testimony in connection with the other testimony heard at the trial. To this part of the charge the defendant excepted and assigned error upon it. It seems to me that this was not only to the probable, but to the manifest, prejudice of the defendant, as all the embargoes related to matters outside of Detroit, and were issued after the delivery in that city of all the 12 cars. Under these circumstances this testimony and the charge upon it must have confused and misled the jury. Especially was this testimony also inadmissible because no allegation respecting the embargoes is made in the 12 counts.
The indictment in each of the 12 counts alleged that before the National Fireproofing Company received and unloaded the cars respectively referred to in the counts separately the railroad company did “constructively place” said cars in its yards in Detroit, and did notify the National Fireproofing Company accordingly. Testimony to establish this “constructive” placement was objected to, but "was admitted and exceptions taken. The schedules, so far as I can see, contain no clause to justify the claims or the allegations of constructive placements. Nothing like it was, under the law, an element of the offenses charged in the 12 counts. These allegations and this testimony were alike impertinent and immaterial because of that fact, and proof of “constructive” placements was not warranted by anything *364in the rules, schedules or tariffs. This testimony, I think, was wrongly admitted, and was prima facie incompetent. Nothing was disclosed to overcome this prima facie condition of incompetency. Furthermore, the law does not seem to me to have made criminal a mere congestion of freight traffic in large cities or elsewhere. It does require the prompt making and collecting of demurrage charges as they accrue in order to prevent unlawful concessions in rates for transportation, but this is very different from congestions or embargoes. While as to such demurrage charges and concessions the allegations of the several counts are pertinent and sufficient and proof respecting them plainly admissible, it was not so as to the immaterial allegations of congestions and constructive placements of cars for unloading — those mere acts not being criminal nor lawful elements of the offenses charged. An immaterial allegation in an indictment can afford no sound basis for the introduction of testimony to support it.
Possibly the errors I have referred to in respect to testimony did not influence the jury more than they did the trial judge, who appears to me to have inflicted an excessive penalty as a direct result of those errors. This seems apparent when we read what he said when imposing the sentence. The record shows that he then said:
“It is true tliat the penalty fixed by this statute is a very heavy one. The minimum is.heaviér than almost any other criminal statute fixes that I have anything to do -with; and the maximum is correspondingly high. The ordinary small fine in matters of this kind would he too trifling to consider in connection with the magnitude of the offense in dollars and cents.. I have already interpreted the law to mean that (and this is my honest belief) moral turpitude and intentional wrongdoing have nothing to do with it. The result that follows the congestion is of a magnitude that one can hardly comprehend. This case was a revelation to me as to the awful results following congestion. Thousands of cars are held that cannot be delivered, and of course millions of dollars of damage done to the public taken as a whole, the railroads, the . shipping public, the consuming public, the purchasing public, and to every one. The results that follow misfortunes of this kind are enormous; they are of great magnitude. And it is a proposition of great magnitude; it is dealing with big things, with matters of great volume, and, in proportion, from a money standpoint, goes far beyond the ordinary affairs of life. They deal with millions instead of dollars and cents. So when we think about the subject-matter they are dealing with and the end meant to be accomplished, the penalty, as I see it, is entirely reasonable under the interpretation that I gave to it that intentional wrongdoing is not necessary.”
The congestion he referred to may have been disastrous to individuals, but the charge against the defendant in the 12 counts under consideration was not really that of causing a “congestion,” which, per se, was not unlawful, but that of failing to collect only a few days’ demurrage on each of only 12 cars specified in the 12 counts — thereby making unlawful concessions in rates of transportation. He said that thousands of cars are held in such cases and tliat the misfortunes which follow were “enormous.” The mere “congestion” which caused such results was not unlawful, and for that reason could not properly have been proved as an element of the offenses charged; and as the attempt to prove it had been made over the objections of the defendant it is well to say that the recent investigation of car service by the Interstate Commerce Commission developed that there is no statute, crim*365inal or otherwise, which is applicable to such a state of case. The learned judge spoke of the expense the government had incurred; but, while disclaiming a right or intent to punish for that, his remarks seem clearly to indicate that what had been shown while all the 60 counts were under hearing influenced him and evidently inflamed the penalties.
It seems to me, therefore, that, could this case come to be tried upon the 12 counts alone, and the testimony be confined to the legal offenses those counts actually charge, there could be a judgment rendered more nearly fitting the crimes charged, namely, mere noncollection of de-murrage for a few days under circumstances indicating nothing like willful or wanton violations of the law, as, indeed, the learned court afterwards said was the fact. ■ Tor these reasons, I think the judgment should be reversed for the errors pointed out. The case can then be retried in a different atmosphere and without the complications to which I have alluded. This, I believe, would be promotive of justice.
Of course I do not doubt that ordinarily the trial court may exercise the discretion the statute gives in determining between the lowest and the highest penalty prescribed; but where the court may not merely have done that, but may unconsciously have permitted other factors to intrude themselves, justice may require a correction of a wrong unintentionally done. I think there should be a reversal, with directions that will more strictly limit the investigation and testimony to the 12 counts in a way to avoid the errors pointed out.