Court Opinion

ID: 9636861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:45:41.025654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:50.269745
License: Public Domain

COTTERAL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I feel bound to dissent on the ground that the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act should not be construed as relating to the transportation of airplanes.
A prevailing rule is that a penal statute is to be construed strictly against an offender and it must state clearly the persons and acts denounced. 25 B. C. L. pp.- 1081-1084; First Nat. Bank of Anamoose v. United States (C. C. A.) 206 F. 374, 46 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1139.
It would have been a simple matter in enacting the statute to insert, as descriptive words, abadanes, aircraft, or flying machines. If they had been in the legislative mind, the language would not have been expressed in such uncertainty as “any other self-propelled vehicle not designed for running on rails.” The omission to definitely mention airplanes requb'es a construction that they were not included. Furthermore, by excepting vehicles running on rails, the meaning of the act is clarified. These words indicate it was meant to be confined to vehicles that run, hut not on rails, and it did not extend to those that fy. Is it not an unreasonable view that airplanes fall within the description of self-propelled vehicles that do not run on rails ? The question is its own answer.
The rule of ejusdem generis has special application to this statute. General words following a particular designation are usually presumed to be restricted so as to include only things or persons of the same kind, class, or nature, unless there is a clear manifestation of a contrary purpose. 25 B. C. L. pp. 996, 997. The general description in this statute refers to vehicles of the same general class as those enumerated. We may assume an airplane is a vehicle, in being a means of transportation. And it has its own motive power. But is an airplane classified generally with “an automobile, automobile truck, automobile wagon, or motor cycle?” Are airplanes reg'arded as other types of automobiles and the like? A moment’s reflection demonstrates the contrary.
Counsel for appellant have referred us to the debates in Congress when the act was pending as persuasive of an interpretation in his favor. House, Cong. Rec., vol. 58, part 6, pp. 5470 to 5478; Senate, Id., vol. 58, part 7, pp. 6433 to 6435. The proceedings are not permissible aids, apart from the journals or committee reports. But they may be referred to as showing the history of the period. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 31 S. Ct. 502, 55 L. Ed. 619, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 834, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 734. The discussions of the proposed measure are enlightening in this ease from a historic standpoint, in showing that the theft of automobiles was so prevalent over the land as to call for punitive restraint, but airplanes were never even mentioned.
It is familiar knowledge that the theft of automobiles had then become a public menace, but that airplanes had been rarely stolen if at all, and it is a most uncommon thing even at this date. The prevailing mischief sought to be corrected is an aid in the construction of a statute. 25 B. C. L. 1016.
I am constrained to hold that airplanes were not meant by the act to be embraced in the designation of motor vehicles, and that the indictment charged no offense against the defendant.