Court Opinion

ID: 9481638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:26:59.35628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:28.926174
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge, concurring.
I concur in the body of the majority opinion, but footnote five prompts me to add a word of explanation as to the point at which I part company with the dissenters.
The dissent suggests that there could have been no violation of the statute without at least an implied representation to Agent Hall that the documents were correct — and the dissent asserts that, “in fact, the defendant did not ... imply that they were correct.” I agree that an implied representation was required, but it seems to me that such a representation was, in fact, made. The defendant agreed to put a false price in the sales documents with a view to misleading anyone who read the documents, and in sending the false documents to Agent Hall, as the jury must have found, the defendant intended to mislead Agent Hall. I think the record amply supports the conclusions (1) that the defendant falsified a material fact, (2) that he did so by making a false representation, and (3) that he used a false document in the process. On the record before us, in my opinion, the defendant’s use of the false document constituted a violation of all three of the operative clauses of the statute.