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. 290. 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. 533. The cause
was then brought to this Court on a writ of certiorari.
Page 177 U. S. 306
MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was an action to recover penalties for an alleged violation
of the laws of the United States relating to the transportation of
livestock, and the question involved is whether the defendants, who
were in charge and control of the Philadelphia & Reading
Railroad as receivers, appointed by the circuit court of the United
States, were liable in such an action.
The act under which this suit was brought was passed March 3,
1873, and was entitled "An Act to Prevent Cruelty to Animals while
in Transit by Railroad or Other Means of Transportation within the
United States." It appears in the Revised Statutes as sections
4386, 4387, 4388, and 4389, as follows:
"SEC. 4386. No railroad company within the United States whose
road forms any part of a line of road over which cattle, sheep,
swine, or other animals are conveyed from one state to another, or
the owners or masters of steam, sailing, or other vessels carrying
or transporting cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals from one
state to another, shall confine the same in cars, boats, or vessels
of any description for a longer period than twenty-eight
consecutive hours, without unloading the same for rest, water, and
feeding for a period of at least five consecutive hours, unless
prevented from so unloading by storm or other accidental causes. In
estimating such confinement the time during which the animals have
been confined without such rest on connecting roads from which they
are received shall be included, it being the intent of this section
to prohibit their continuous confinement beyond the period of
twenty-eight hours, except upon contingencies hereinbefore
stated."
"SEC. 4387. Animals so unloaded shall be properly fed and
watered during such rest by the owner or person having the custody
thereof, or in case of his default in so doing, then by the
railroad company or owners or masters of boats or vessels
transporting the same at the expense of the owner or person in
custody thereof, and such company, owners, or masters shall in such
case have a lien upon such animals for food, care, and
Page 177 U. S. 307
custody furnished, and shall not be liable for any detention of
such animals."
"SEC. 4388. Any company, owner, or custodian of such animals who
knowingly and willingly fails to comply with the provisions of the
two preceding sections shall, for every such failure, be liable for
and forfeit and pay a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars
nor more than five hundred dollars. But when animals are carried in
cars, boats, or other vessels in which they can and do have proper
food, water, space, and opportunity to rest, the provisions in
regard to their being unloaded shall not apply."
"SEC. 4389. The penalty created by the preceding sections shall
be recovered by civil action in the name of the United States in
the circuit or district court of the United States holden within
the district where the violation may have been committed or the
person or corporation resides or carries on its business, and it
shall be the duty of all United States marshals, their deputies and
subordinates, to prosecute all violations which come to their
notice or knowledge."
The contention on behalf of the government is that by the words
"any company," used in section 4388, Congress intended to embrace
all common carriers, whether by rail or water, upon whom the duty
was imposed by section 4386 of unloading and feeding the animals;
that the word "company" is used in a popular sense as signifying
the person or persons, the association or corporation, carrying on
the business of a common carrier by rail or water; that, as shown
by its title, the act in question was a humane one, designed to
prevent cruelty to animals while in course of interstate transit;
that the regulations were to be complied with whenever animals were
transported by rail or boat from one state or another, and that
whoever had charge of the railroad or the boat had to see that
these wholesome and humane regulations were obeyed, or had to pay
the penalty for violating them.
To strengthen the argument that Congress intended to include
even receivers when managing a railroad under an appointment by a
court, the government's counsel calls attention
Page 177 U. S. 308
to the provisions of the second and third sections of the Act of
August 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 436, c. 866, reading as follows:
"SEC. 2. That whenever in any cause pending in any court of the
United States there shall be a receiver or manager in possession of
any property, such receiver or manager shall manage and operate
such property according to the requirements of the valid laws of
the state in which such property shall be situated, in the same
manner that the owner or possessor thereof would be bound to do if
in possession thereof. Any receiver or manager who shall willfully
violate the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a
fine not exceeding three thousand dollars or by imprisonment not
exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion
of the court."
"SEC. 3. That every receiver or manager of any property
appointed by any court of the United States may be sued in respect
of any act or transaction of his in carrying on the business
connected with such property, without the previous leave of the
court in which such receiver or manager was appointed, but such
suit shall be subject to the general equity jurisdiction of the
court in which such receiver or manager was appointed so far as the
same shall be necessary to the ends of justice."
It is claimed that the effect of such legislation is to place
receivers upon the same plane with railway companies as respects
their liability to be sued for acts done while operating as
railroad.
Upon the whole, the proposition of the government's counsel is
that the words "any company, owner, or custodian of such animals,"
used in section 4388, are intended to cover all those who can
possibly violate the preceding two sections; that the words "every
company" must therefore be held to include a railroad company,
whether a person, a partnership or a corporation and whether acting
individually or through officers or receivers.
It may be conceded that it was the intention of Congress to
subject receivers of railroad companies, appointed such by courts
of the United States, to the valid laws and regulations of the
states and of the United States, whose object is to promote the
safety, comfort, and convenience of the traveling public. But
Page 177 U. S. 309
we are not now concerned with the general intention of Congress,
but with its special intention, manifested in the enactments under
which this suit was brought. Was it the purpose of Congress, when
prescribing a penalty for any company, owner, or custodian of
animals who knowingly and willingly fails to comply with the
directions of the statute, to include receivers? Can we fairly
bring receivers within the penal clause by reasoning from a
supposed or an apparent motive in Congress in passing the act?
It was the view of the courts below that receivers were plainly
not within the letter of the statute, and not necessarily within
its purpose or spirit, and an attentive examination has brought us
to the same conclusion.
It must be admitted that, in order to hold the receivers, they
must be regarded as included in the word "company." Only by a
strained and artificial construction, based chiefly upon a
consideration of the mischief which the legislature sought to
remedy, can receivers be brought within the terms of the law. But
can such a kind of construction be resorted to in enforcing a penal
statute? Giving all proper force to the contention of the counsel
of the government that there has been some relaxation on the part
of the courts in applying the rule of strict construction to such
statutes, it still remains that the intention of a penal statute
must be found in the language actually used, interpreted according
to its fair and obvious meaning. It is not permitted to courts in
this class of cases to attribute inadvertence or oversight to the
legislature when enumerating the classes of persons who are
subjected to a penal enactment, nor to depart from the settled
meaning of words or phrases in order to bring persons not named or
distinctly described within the supposed purpose of the
statute.
It may well be that Congress, in omitting to expressly include
receivers in these sections, intended to leave them subject to the
control and direction of the courts, whose officers they are. It
does not, therefore, follow that the statute in question would be
without operation where railroads are in the hands of receivers.
The owners and custodians of the stock would still remain subject
to the punishment prescribed.
Page 177 U. S. 310
We cannot better close this discussion than by quoting the
language of Chief Justice Marshall in the case of
United
States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76:
"The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly is
perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded
on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals, and on
the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the
legislative, and not in the judicial, department. It is the
legislature, not the court, which is to define a crime and ordain
its punishment. It is said that notwithstanding this rule, the
intention of the lawmaker must govern in the construction of penal
as well as other statutes. . . . But this is not a new independent
rule which subverts the old. It is a modification of the ancient
maxim, and amounts to this, that though penal laws are to be
construed strictly, they are not to be construed so strictly as to
defeat the obvious intention of the legislature. The maxim is not
to be so applied as to narrow the words of the statute to the
exclusion of cases which those words, in their ordinary acceptation
or in that sense in which the legislature has obviously used them,
would comprehend. The intention of the legislature is to be
collected from the words they employ. Where there is no ambiguity
in the words, there is no room for construction. The case must be a
strong one indeed which would justify a court in departing from the
plain meaning of words -- especially in a penal act, in search of
an intention which the words themselves did not suggest. To
determine that a case is within the intention of a statute, its
language must authorize us to say so. It would be dangerous indeed
to carry the principle that a case which is within the reason or
mischief of a statute is within its provisions, so far as to punish
a crime not enumerated in the statute because it is of equal
atrocity, or of a kindred character with those which are
enumerated. If this principle has ever been recognized in
expounding criminal law, it has been in cases of considerable
irritation, which it would be unsafe to consider as precedents
forming a general rule for other cases."
See likewise Sarlls v. United States, 152 U.
S. 570.
The judgment of the circuit court of appeals is
Affirmed.