Court Opinion

ID: 9445470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:30:01.747999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:16.924926
License: Public Domain

HUXMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with my associates that the decision is determined solely by the Colorado Foodstuffs Statute. Of course, if Rose violated the Colorado Statute, then there is an end to the case and there is no need of looking to common-law liability. Since, however, it is my conclusion that there was no violation of the provisions of the Colorado Foodstuffs Statute it is necessary to consider whether there is liability under the common law.
Without discussing common-law liability or citing authorities, it is sufficient to say that the Court’s finding that “there is no ’evidence that the defects in this feed were known by defendant or should or could have been known by him in the exercise of reasonable care” precludes common-law liability.
Since the decision rests upon a construction of the Colorado Foodstuffs Statute and involves the policy of Colorado with respect to such sales, it is unfortunate that we do not have a construction of the Statute by that Court. Apparently the question has never been before the State Court and it is, therefore, our duty to construe the statute.
As stated in the majority opinion, Colorado has two statutes dealing with adulteration of foods! Section 66-14-1 et seq., deals with the sale of adulterated foods and drugs for human consumption. It defines specific elements which constitute adulteration. It then contains a general provisiojn providing that foodstuffs shall be considered adulterated which contain “other added deleterious ingredient which many render such article injurious to health.”
Section 8-14-1 defines commercial feeds. Section 8-14-10 defines what constitutes adulteration with respect to such feeds. It sej;s out detailed illustrations of what constitutes adulteration, such as the addition of “hair, hoof or horn meal, stomach contents, rice hulls, chaff” and many! more specific foreign substances. It, ¡like Section 66-14-6, contains a catch-all provision making it unlawful “to mix with commercial feeding stuffs any substance or substances injurious to the .health of livestock or poultry.” If Rose violated the statute, he violated the last-quoted provision thereof.
The word “adulterated”, the subject of these statutes, hks a well-defined, generally understood and accepted meaning. In general, it means a substance is adulterated when it éontains a corrupt, deleterious, harmful substance or substances. To adulterate means to add a foreign substance that is harmful, impure and unwholesome, making the adulterated product unfit and dangerous to consumption. Webster’s New Interna*99tional Dictionary, 1928 Edition, states that adulterate means “To corrupt, debase, make impure by an admixture of a foreign or a baser substance; * * In law the term has been defined as meaning corruption by the addition of a foreign substance;1 *to corrupt, debase or make impure by an admixture of a foreign or debase substance.2
To add a substance or substances to a feed which is injurious to livestock is one form of adulteration. Adulteration results from the addition of a substance or substances which in themselves are base, inferior and detrimental to health of livestock. Neither sulphur nor protein are base or injurious substances. They are both wholesome elements used in food. Rose, therefore, did not add a dangerous or debase element to his feed. The combination of a 7% mixture of sulphur and protein did not of itself create a poisonous or dangerous food as is evidenced by the fact that this same mixture has been fed to cattle for two years without any harmful results. It apparently became injurious only when eaten in excessive quantities. The Court found that death resulted from eating excessive quantities of this feed.
If the result from excessive over-eating makes this foodstuff an adulterated food within the meaning of the statute then whole wheat when sold as a feed for consumption by livestock is likewise an adulterated food, because it is a well-known fact that if consumed in excessive quantities it will cause death. So also it is a fact of common knowledge that luscious growing wheat in the fall of the year will kill cattle if permitted at first to have unrestrained access thereto. Death in such case results from over-eating and not from eating an adulterated contaminated food.
As I construe the statute, what Colorado sought to prevent was the addition of harmful elements to feed from the addition of which injury or harm would result because of the debased, unwholesome nature of the added elements. Until the Courts of Colorado hold otherwise, I shall continue to be of the view that the legislature never intended to make the processor of an admixture of wholesome food elements an absolute insurer that no harmful effects could result under any condition or conceivable circumstances and that the intent was to prevent the addition of base, unwholesome elements, which in themselves were harmful. I, therefore, conclude that there was no liability per se under the statute and that there was no common-law liability because under the Court’s finding Rose was free of negligence which would impose the liability. I would, therefore, affirm the judgment.

. United States v. 24 Cases, More or Less, etc., D.C., 87 F.Supp. 826, 827.

. Defiance Milk Products Co. v. Du Mond, 285 App.Div. 337, 136 N.Y.S.2d 619, 625.