Court Opinion

ID: 9769012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:02:15.162485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:46.593883
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
One troubling aspect of dissenting opinion by Judge Teague is its utter failure to articulate precisely wherein the Legislature ran afoul of due process in V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Chapter 7, Subchapter B. As best his premises may be understood, they are Subchapter B was not enacted “under its police power” and § 7.22(a)(1) imposes upon a corporation “strict, automatic criminal liability” for negligent acts of its employees and agents. See at pp. 808, 809, 810, 811.
Judge Teague errs in perceiving “public welfare offenses” are derived from police power whereas an offense to which a corporation is made subject under the penal code or some other law, and criminally responsible through § 7.22(a)(1), is not. Call them what one may, the latter is an exercise of police power as much as the former.
Of course it is hornbook law, supported by a wealth of authority, that “police power” is an attribute of sovereignty by which its lawmaking body may enact laws to protect peace, safety, health, happiness and *815general welfare of the people. 12 Tex. Jur.3d 610-611, “Constitutional Law, F. Police Power,” § 80. Manifestly, in its broadest sense police power is exercised in taking measures to prevent and suppress crime and to preserve order, State v. City of Dallas, 319 S.W.2d 767, 774 (Tex.Civ. App.—Dallas 1958), affirmed 160 Tex. 348, 331 S.W.2d 737 (1958), such as enacting a penal code and establishing and maintaining a criminal justice system. In this, the State acts in selfdefense to preserve its existence by protecting its citizens in life, health and happiness. Ex parte Flake, 67 Tex.Cr.R. 216, 149 S.W. 146, 154 (1912) (Opinion on Rehearing).
Just as erroneously Judge Teague finds § 7.22(a)(1), and presumably all of Sub-chapter B, supra, is unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious in holding a corporation strictly liable for criminally negligent acts of its employees and agents because it does not require “proof that the appellant corporation itself did something criminally wrongful.” at 820.
The theory of strict liability is not unprecedented, however. See American Plant Food Corp. v. State, 587 S.W.2d 679 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), a conviction for the offense of water pollution under Water Code prohibition that “[n]o person may discharge, or cause or permit the discharge of, any waste into or adjacent to any water in the state which will cause water pollution unless_” Id., at 681, n. 1. From legislative history the Court found the Legislature intent was “to create a strict liability standard in which no proof of scienter is necessary.” Id., at 685. Also see American Plant Food Corporation v. Sate, 508 S.W.2d 598 (Tex.Cr.App.1974). In both instances the water pollution could only have occurred through acts or omissions of individuals, employees and agents of the corporation, rather than the “corporation, itself.”