Appellee, a public storage warehouseman, was charged by criminal
information with violations of § 301(k) of the Federal Food, Drug,
ant Cosmetic Act, which prohibits acts involving defacement of
labels of food and other specified articles held for sale after
interstate shipment and the "doing of of any other act" with
respect to such articles which results in their being adulterated
or misbranded. Under § 402(a)(4), adulteration is defined to
include holding food under insanitary conditions whereby it may
have been contaminated with filth. The District Court, construing
the statute under the rule of
ejusdem generis as applying
only to acts of the same general nature as those specifically
enumerated with respect to label defacing and as being too vague to
include the mere "holding" of articles, dismissed the information
for failure to state an offense.
Held:
1. Section 301(k), as is clear from its wording and legislative
history, defines two distinct offenses -- one concerning label
defacing and the other concerning adulteration, and the criminal
information properly charged an offense for adulteration under the
Act. Pp.
376 U. S.
89-92.
2. Section 301(k) is not limited to one holding title to goods.
and therefore applies to a public storage warehouseman, whether he
owns the goods stored or not. P.
376 U. S.
92.
217 F. Supp. 638, reversed and remanded.
Page 376 U. S. 87
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 301(k) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
prohibits the
"alteration, mutilation, destruction, obliteration, or removal
of the whole or any part of the labeling of, or the doing of any
other act with respect to, a food, drug, device, or cosmetic, if
such act is done while such article is held for sale . . . after
shipment in interstate commerce and results in such article being
adulterated or misbranded. [
Footnote 1]"
Section 402 of the Act provides, among other things, that
"(a) food shall be deemed to be adulterated -- (a) . . . (3) if
it consists in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid, or
decomposed substance, or if it is otherwise unfit for food; or (4)
if it has been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary
conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or
whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health. . . .
[
Footnote 2]"
The question presented by this appeal is whether a criminal
information which alleges the holding of food by a public storage
warehouseman (after interstate shipment and before ultimate sale)
under insanitary conditions in a building accessible to rodents,
birds and insects, where it may have become contaminated with
filth, charges an offense under § 301(k).
The Government filed a criminal information containing
allegations to this effect [
Footnote 3] in the District Court for
Page 376 U. S. 88
the Middle District of Florida, charging the appellee, a public
storage warehouseman, with violations of § 301(k). The court
construed § 301(k) as not applying to the mere act of "holding"
goods, and dismissed the information for failure to allege an
offense under the statute. 217 F. Supp. 638, 639. The order of
dismissal was appealed by the Government under the Criminal Appeals
Act, which gives this Court jurisdiction to review on direct appeal
a judgment dismissing an information on the basis of a
"construction of the statute upon which the . . . information is
founded." [
Footnote 4] We noted
probable jurisdiction. 373 U.S. 921. For the reasons which follow,
we reverse the judgment of the District Court.
In arriving at its construction of the statute, the District
Court reasoned that § 301(k), "as it is presently written, is too
vague and indefinite to apply to the mere act of "holding" goods."
217 F. Supp. at 639. Accordingly, "in an effort to uphold the
statute as constitutional," the court applied the rule of
ejusdem generis to limit the words "the doing of any other
act" in § 301(k) to acts of "the same general nature" as those
specifically enumerated in the subsection,
i.e., acts
relating to the alteration, mutilation, destruction, obliteration,
or removal of the labeling of articles.
Ibid. We find such
reliance on the rule of
ejusdem generis misplaced; its
application to § 301(k) is contrary to both the text and
legislative history
Page 376 U. S. 89
of the subsection, and unnecessary to a constitutionally
permissible construction of the statute.
The language of § 301(k) unambiguously defines two distinct
offenses with respect to food held for sale after interstate
shipment. As originally enacted in 1938, the subsection prohibited
"[t]he alteration, mutilation, destruction, obliteration, or
removal" of the label, or "the doing of any other act" with respect
to the product which "results in such article being misbranded."
[
Footnote 5] The section was
amended in 1948 to prohibit additionally "the doing of any other
act" with respect to the product which "results in such article
being adulterated." [
Footnote
6] The acts specifically enumerated in the original enactment
relate to the offense of misbranding through labeling or the lack
thereof. The separate offense of adulteration, on the other hand,
is concerned solely with deterioration or contamination of the
commodity itself. For the most part, acts resulting in misbranding
and acts resulting in adulteration are wholly distinct.
Consequently, since the enumerated label defacing offenses bear no
textual or logical relation to the scope of the general language
condemning acts of product adulteration, [
Footnote 7] application of the rule of
ejusdem
generis to limit the words "the doing of
Page 376 U. S. 90
any other act" resulting in product adulteration in § 301(k) to
acts of the same general character as those specifically enumerated
with respect to misbranding is wholly inappropriate.
Moreover, the legislative history makes plain that no such
application of the rule was intended. As the House Committee Report
on the proposed 1948 amendment unequivocally stated:
"It seems clear that, under the subsection as now in force, the
rule of
ejusdem generis would not apply in interpreting
the words 'or the doing of any other act . . . ,' and it is even
more clear that this rule will not apply in the interpretation of
the subsection as amended by this bill. [
Footnote 8]"
It is equally clear from this legislative history that Congress
intended to proscribe the particular conduct charged in the
information filed below -- the holding of food under insanitary
conditions whereby it may have become contaminated. The House
Committee Report noted that the amended section would
"penalize, among other acts resulting in adulteration or
misbranding, the act of holding articles under insanitary
conditions whereby they may become contaminated with filth or
rendered injurious to health,"
and emphasized that the Committee intended the amendments to be
applied to their fullest constitutional limits. [
Footnote 9]
Page 376 U. S. 91
Congress chose statutory language appropriate to effectuate this
purpose. Section 301(k), as amended, prohibits "any . . . act"
which results in adulteration of the product. And food is
adulterated if it "has been prepared, packed, or held under
insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with
filth." [
Footnote 10] This
language defines with particularity an explicit standard of
conduct. Section 301(k), read together with the definition of food
adulteration contained in § 402(a)(4), therefore gives ample
warning that the "holding" or storing of food under insanitary
conditions whereby it may have become contaminated is
prohibited.
It is settled law in the area of food and drug regulation that a
guilty intent is not always a prerequisite to the imposition of
criminal sanctions. Food and drug legislation, concerned as it is
with protecting the lives and health of human beings under
circumstances in which they might be unable to protect themselves,
often
"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.
United States v. Balint, 258 U. S.
250."
United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.
S. 277,
320 U. S.
281.
It is argued, nevertheless, that the Government in this case is
seeking to impose criminal sanctions upon one "who is, by the very
nature of his business powerless" to protect against this kind of
contamination, however high the standard of care exercised.
Whatever the truth of this claim, it involves factual proof to be
raised defensively at a trial on the merits. We are here concerned
only with the construction of the statute as it relates to the
sufficiency of the information, and not with the scope and
Page 376 U. S. 92
reach of the statute as applied to such facts as may be
developed by evidence adduced at a trial.
Finally, the appellee attempts to uphold the dismissal of the
information on a ground not relied on by the District Court. The
appellee says that it was a bailee of the food, not a seller, and
that it was not holding the food for sale within the meaning of §
301(k). Both the language and the purpose of the statute refute
this construction. The language of § 301(k) does not limit its
application to one holding title to the goods, and, since the
danger to the public from insanitary storage of food is the same
regardless of the proprietary status of the person storing it, the
purpose of the legislation -- to safeguard the consumer from the
time the food is introduced into the channels of interstate
commerce to the point that it is delivered to the ultimate consumer
-- would be substantially thwarted by such an unwarranted reading
of the statutory language.
United States v. Kocmond, 200
F.2d 370, 372;
cf. United States v. Sullivan, 332 U.
S. 689,
332 U. S. 696;
United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.
S. 277,
320 U. S.
282.
Accordingly, we hold that a criminal information charging a
public storage warehouseman with holding food (after interstate
shipment and before ultimate sale) under insanitary conditions
whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, charges an
offense under § 301(k) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The order of the District Court dismissing the information is
therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
[
Footnote 1]
52 Stat. 1040, 21 U.S.C. § 331(k).
[
Footnote 2]
52 Stat. 1040, 21 U.S.C. §§ 342(a)(3) and (4).
[
Footnote 3]
The information was in six counts, the counts differing only
with respect to the particular shipment or product involved. Each
count charged that appellee had received an article of food which
had been shipped in interstate commerce, and that, while this food
was being held for sale, appellee caused it to be held in a
building accessible to rodents, birds, and insects, thus exposing
it to contamination, and thereby adulterating the food within the
meaning of § 402(a) of the Act, 21 U.S.C. § 342(a), in that the
food consisted in part of a filthy substance, to-wit, rodent
excreta, insect larvae, etc., and in that it was held under
insanitary conditions whereby it might have become contaminated
with filth.
[
Footnote 4]
"An appeal may be taken by and on behalf of the United States
from the district courts direct to the Supreme Court of the United
States in all criminal cases in the following instances:"
"From a decision or judgment setting aside, or dismissing any
indictment or information, or any count thereof, where such
decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity or construction
of the statute upon which the indictment or information is founded.
. . ."
62 Stat. 844, 18 U.S.C. § 3731.
[
Footnote 5]
52 Stat. 1042, 21 U.S.C. § 331(k).
See United States v.
Sullivan, 332 U. S. 689.
[
Footnote 6]
62 Stat. 582, 21 U.S.C. § 331(k).
[
Footnote 7]
The House Committee concerned with the proposed amendment to §
301(k) was aware of this textual problem.
"The present section 301(k) forbids, first, certain acts with
respect to the labeling of an article, and, second, 'any other act
with respect to' the article itself which results in its being
misbranded. . . . [A]dulteration more often occurs as a result of
acts done to or with respect to the article itself. Since the
section already contains the broad phrase 'any other act with
respect to' the article, and since this phrase is not limited by
the preceding enumeration of forbidden acts with respect to the
labeling, there is no need, in making it applicable to
adulteration, to change the existing statutory language in this
regard."
H.R.Rep. No. 807, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3.
[
Footnote 8]
Id. at pp. 3-4.
[
Footnote 9]
Id. at p. 6. During the Senate hearings on the
amendment, the Associate Commissioner of Food and Drugs explained
that,
"under the bill as enacted here, if there was a definite showing
of violation on the part of the warehouse which had this material
stored, a prosecution of them criminally for doing the act of
holding under these insanitary conditions, which result in
adulteration could ensue."
Hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce, United States Senate, on S. 1190 and H.R. 4071,
80th Cong., 2d Sess., April 17, 1948.
[
Footnote 10]
See note 2
supra.