Court Opinion

ID: 9637500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:07:58.044382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:56.639089
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I concur in the view expressed by the majority that the court below erred in permitting the prosecuting attorney to argue, over the objections of the defendant’s counsel, that it was incumbent upon the defendant to produce as witnesses on his behalf the many employees of the Cape Ann Granite Company whom he was not charged by the indictment with having subjected to extortion so that they could testify that he had not exacted anything from them.
On the other hand I must dissent from the ruling to the effect that Section 1 of the Act of June 13, 1934, c. 482, Sec. 1, 48 Stat. 948, 40 U.S.C.A. § 276b, the “KickBack Act”, is not sufficiently broad to cover the acts of the defendant. I agree with the majority that the “contract of employment” referred to in the statute is the contract of employment between the employer and the employee and that the crime prohibited by the statute is the impairment or derogation of the employee’s contractual right to the wages he is bound to receive under the contract. But to hold that the only person who is capable of offending against the statute is an employer, because only an employer is in privity of contract with the employee, is to emasculate needlessly an important criminal statute.
The defendant was a foreman employed by Cape Ann Granite Company. That company put him in charge of the stone masons employed by it. The defendant possessed the power to employ them or to discharge them and his connection with them was more direct and hence more influential than that of many a higher official of the Cape Ann Granite Company. The defendant was in privity to the contract by representation, his representation being that of his employer.
*853The language of the section is very broad and is ambiguous. It does not make use of the word “employer”, though there is direct reference to the contract of employment and to the “person employed”. The section uses the word “Whoever” to name the person who may offend against the prohibition of the statute. “Whoever” means “Whatever person; any person soever.”1 From the very terms of the statute it is obvious as the majority cogently point out that the section was not intended to apply to instances of extortion unconnected with the contract of employment.2 But the limitation imposed by the majority is too strict as the legislative history of the section demonstrates.
The bill (S. 3041) was the subject of a Senate Report, No. 803, 73rd Cong.,. 2nd Sess. Senator Stephens from the Committee on the Judiciary stated in part, “Hearings of the Senate Committee on Racketeering revealed that large sums of money have been extracted from the pockets of American labor, to enrich contractors, subcontractors, and their officials.” Certainly if the president or a director of a corporation caused an employee to kick back a part of his wages under threat of dismissal the acts of such an “official” would be within the prohibition of the section. In my opinion a foreman is an official of a company. The defendant was not a stranger in fact or in law to the contract of employment. I think that his conduct falls within the prohibition of the statute.
While I agree with the majority that a criminal statute must be construed strictly, the construction should not be so strict as to deny the fair intendment of Congress. I conclude therefore that the acts which Laudani did were a violation of the statute. In arriving at this conclusion I am not unmindful of the decisions of Judge Kirkpatrick of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in United States v. Golder, 11 F.Supp. 870, 871, and in United States v. Charlick, 26 F.Supp. 203, 205. The words of that careful jurist are entitled to great weight but what he said in the cited cases was not apposite the question sub judice.
It follows therefore that while I concur in the view of the majority that the judgment of the court below should be reversed, I am of the opinion that a new trial should be ordered and that the direction of the majority that the indictment be quashed is in error.

 Webster’s New International Dictionary. The Universal Dictionary of the English Language defines the word as “Who, the person, any person, anybody, be he who he may.” Punk & Wagnalls Concise Standard Dictionary defines “Whoever” as, “Any one without exception who.”

 I wish to make plain as do the majority that the responsible officials of Cape Ann Granite Company were not aware of the course of conduct of Laudani, were not parties to it, and did not countenance it.