United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

United States v. Harris, 177 U.S. 305 (1900)

United States v. Harris

No. 169

Argued March 5-6, 1900

Decided April 9, 1900

177 U.S. 305

Syllabus

A receiver of a railroad is not

"within the letter or the spirit of the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1873, c. 252, 17 Stat. 584, entitled 'An act to prevent cruelty to animals while in transit by railroad or other means of transportation within the United States,'"

now incorporated into the Revised Statutes as sections 4386, 4387, 4388 and 4389.

This was a suit brought in November, 1895, in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by the United States against Joseph S. Harris, Edward M. Paxson, and John Lowber Welsh, receivers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, to recover a penalty in the sum of five hundred dollars for an alleged violation of sections 4386, 4387, 4388, and 4389 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.

There was a verdict in favor of the United States, but afterwards, on a question reserved at the trial, judgment was entered in favor of the defendants non obstante veredicto. 78 F.2d 0. Thereupon a writ of error was sued out from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and on March 14, 1898, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. 85 F.5d 3. The cause was then brought to this Court on a writ of certiorari.

Page 177 U. S. 306