Court Opinion

ID: 9460778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:00:12.082035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:46.860574
License: Public Domain

CRAVEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I would affirm because I believe this case is controlled by United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943). To express my viewpoint, it is enough to quote from Mr. Justice Frankfurter writing for the Court in Dotterweich:
The Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was an exertion by Congress of its power to keep impure and adulterated food and drugs out of the channels of commerce. By the Act of 1938, Congress extended the range of its control over illicit and noxious articles and stiffened the penalties for disobedience. The purposes of this legislation thus touch phases of the lives and health of people which, in the circumstances of modern industrialism, are largely beyond self-protection. Regard for these purposes should infuse construction of the legislation if it is to be treated as a working instrument of government and not merely as a collection of English words. . The prosecution to which Dotterweich was subjected is based on a now fa*844miliar type of legislation whereby penalties serve as effective means of regulation. Such legislation dispenses with the conventional requirement for criminal conduct — awareness of some wrongdoing. In the interest of the larger good it puts the burden of acting at hazard upon a person otherwise innocent but standing in responsible relation to a public danger. . And so it is clear that shipments like those now in issue are “punished by the statute if the article is misbranded [or adulterated], and that the article may be misbranded [or adulterated] without any conscious fraud at all.
Id. at 280-281, 64 S.Ct. at 138 (citations omitted).
In Dotterweich the Supreme Coui't reversed a Second Circuit decision that was said to be motivated by “fear that an enforcement of § 301(a) as written might operate too harshly by sweeping within its condemnation any person however remotely entangled in the proscribed shipment.” 320 U.S. at 284, 64 S.Ct. at 138. But defendant Park was not just “remotely entangled” in the proscribed adulteration. Like Dotterweich, he was president of the corporation with full power to control its operations and to take measures to prevent rat infestation of food. Although he had delegated the day-to-day supervision of sanitation to subordinates, Park retained both the power and responsibility to see that the system of rodent control was effective, and if it didn’t work, to change it.
As Mr. Justice Frankfurter said about Dotterweich:
The offense is committed by all who '. . . have such a responsible share in the furtherance of the transaction which the statute outlaws, namely, to put into the stream of interstate commerce adulterated or misbranded drugs [or food]. Hard-' ship there doubtless may be under a statute which thus penalizes the transaction though consciousness of wrongdoing be totally wanting. Balancing relative hardships, ’ Congress has preferred to place it upon those who have at least the opportunity of informing themselves of the existence of conditions imposed for the protection of consumers before sharing in illicit commerce, rather than to throw the hazard on the innocent public who are wholly helpless.
Id. at 284-285, 64 S.Ct. at 138.
The trial judge made it perfectly clear to the jury that “the fact that the Defendant is present and is a chief executive officer of the Acme Markets does not require a finding of guilt. Though, he need not have personally participated in the situation, he must have had a responsible relationship to the issue. The issue is, in this case, whether the defendant, John R. Park, by virtue of his position in the company, had a position of authority and responsibility in the situation out of which these charges arose.”
Thus, again in the language of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, “the District Court properly left the question of the responsibility of [Park] for the shipment to the jury, and there was sufficient evidence to support its verdict.” 320 U.S. at 285, 64 S.Ct. at 138.
Moreover it is clear from examining the prosecutor’s argument to the jury that there was no effort to equate the presidency of the corporation with the responsibility. Instead, the government argued that Mr. Park was responsible because he had established a system of rodent control that did not work in March 1970, November 1971 and March 1972 and that even so he made no effort to change or improve the system.1 The government’s contention was not that the jury should convict if they found *845that Mr. Park was president (that was undisputed) but that they should convict if they found it to be his responsibility for setting up a system of sanitation and of delegating responsibility in a way that does the job in a sanitary way.
I am sympathetic with my brothers’ sense of justice that prompts them, it seems to me, to write into the statute some small degree of mens rea or scienter as a prerequisite to liability, but I share the government’s fear that today’s decision will undermine the congressional purpose of protecting “the innocent public who are wholly helpless” to protect themselves from contaminated food.
Because there will be a new trial, I want to align myself with the majority’s suggestion that evidence in the nature of “prior offenses” may be admissible. Indeed, I would go further. If an additional burden of proof is to be put upon the government to show that Mr. Park acted wrongfully, then it would seem to me that evidence would clearly be admissible that Park’s system o'f rodent control did not work in March 1970 in Philadelphia, or in November 1971 or March 1972 in Baltimore. If the rule is otherwise, I think the government cannot possibly sustain its new burden.

. Park’s testimony indicated the system was established before he became president, but he conceded that if it didn’t work, and needed changing, it was his responsibility to change it. In addition, Park acknowledged having received a letter from the FDA in 1970 outlining unsanitary conditions an inspection team had found in the Philadelphia warehouse.