1. Equity will interfere to prevent criminal proceedings under
an unconstitutional statute when that is necessary to effectually
protect property rights. P.
266 U. S.
500.
2. A criminal statute is not lacking in due process of law
merely because the application of its prohibition may be uncertain
in exceptional cases, and the more clearly so where the act defined
is made criminal only when performed with a specific intent to
defraud. P.
266 U. S.
501.
3. Laws of New York punishing those who sell or expose for sale
meat or meat preparations falsely misrepresenting them as "Kosher,"
or "as having been prepared under and of a product or products
sanctioned by the orthodox Hebrew religious requirements," or who
sell or expose for sale in the same place both Kosher and
non-Kosher meat etc., without signs indicating that both kinds are
sold and labeling the articles accordingly, do not violate the
rights of dealers under the due process and equal protection
clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment or infringe the Commerce
Clause. Pp.
266 U. S. 501,
266 U. S. 503.
Affirmed.
Appeals from decrees of the district court dismissing the bills
in three suits brought by dealers to enjoin the Attorney General of
the State of New York and the District Attorney of the County of
New York from proceeding
Page 266 U. S. 498
against the plaintiffs under Chapters 580 and 581, Laws of New
York, 1922, respecting the sale of "Kosher" meat and meat
preparations.
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.
These appeals challenge the constitutionality of cc. 580 and
581, 2 Laws of New York 1922, pp. 1314, 1315, as being in
contravention of the due process and equal protection of the law
clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and the commerce clause of the
Constitution of the United States. So far as these cases are
concerned, the statutes are substantially alike, and it is enough
to refer to c. 581, which provides that any person who, with intent
to defraud,
". . . 4. Sells or exposes for sale any meat or meat preparation
and falsely represents the same to be kosher, or as having been
prepared under and of a product or products sanctioned by the
orthodox Hebrew religious requirements; or falsely represents any
food product or the contents of any package or container to be so
constituted and prepared, by having or permitting to be inscribed
thereon the word 'kosher' in any language; or sells or exposes for
sale in the same place of business both kosher and nonkosher meat
or meat preparations who fails to indicate on his window signs and
all display advertising, in block letters at least four inches in
height, 'kosher and nonkosher meat sold here;' or who exposes for
sale in any show window or place of business
Page 266 U. S. 499
both kosher and nonkosher meat or meat products who fails to
display over such meat or meat preparation so exposed a sign in
block letters at least four inches in height reading 'kosher meat,'
or 'nonkosher meat,' as the case may be,"
is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Separate suits were brought against appellees to enjoin them
from proceeding against appellants for any alleged failure to
comply with the foregoing statutory requirements or from making any
threats of prosecuting or from conducting any prosecutions by
reason of any failure to label any of the meats sold as "not
kosher" or otherwise interfering with or seeking to prevent the
full, free and unhampered sale of their products without labeling,
etc., and from injuring their business
"by compelling it to be discredited in standing and reputation,
and by having its merchandise wrongfully branded as 'nonkosher' in
accordance with the requirements of said enactments."
The several bills allege that appellees
"have threatened to prosecute all complaints against persons or
concerns engaged as manufacturers, dealers, retailers, or otherwise
in the sale of raw or prepared meat commodities, who are charged
with violating the statutes;"
that, by reason of these threats and of the fear inspired by the
requirements of the statutes, when called upon at their peril to
determine whether their products are kosher and label the same,
appellants have decided and will continue to decide that all
products sold by them are not kosher; that such determination has
been and will be induced by the fear that some judge or jury might
determine that the rabbinical law or the customs, traditions, and
precedents
Page 266 U. S. 500
of the orthodox Hebrew religious requirements necessitate that
even such meats as appellants sell as kosher are not kosher. The
bills contain allegations tending to show the impossibility, or at
least the great difficulty, of determining with certainty what is
kosher according to the rabbinical law and the customs, traditions,
and precedents of the orthodox Hebrew religious requirements; but
appellants allege that, whenever they could possibly determine in
advance whether any meat commodity in their honest belief might be
called kosher, they have sold the same as kosher, but not
otherwise. The bills aver that irreparable injury to appellants'
business, property, goodwill, and reputation will result. It does
not appear that any of the appellants has ever been prosecuted for
a violation of the statutes, or has ever been specifically
threatened with prosecution, the threats alleged being, in
substance, simply that all violators of the statutes will be
prosecuted. The district court, in each case, after a hearing upon
an order to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not
issue, upheld the statutes, denied the injunction and dismissed the
bill.
The general rule is that equity will not interfere to prevent
the enforcement of a criminal statute, even though
unconstitutional.
Packard v. Banton, 264 U.
S. 140,
264 U. S. 143;
In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200,
124 U. S.
209-211;
Davis & Farnum Manufacturing Co. v. Los
Angeles, 189 U. S. 207,
189 U. S. 217.
But appellants seek to bring themselves within an exception to this
general rule -- namely, that a court of equity will interfere to
prevent criminal prosecutions under an unconstitutional statute
when that is necessary to effectually protect property rights.
Packard v. Banton, supra; Terrace v. Thompson,
263 U. S. 197,
263 U. S. 214.
That these bills disclose such a case of threatened actual and
imminent injury as to come within the exception is not beyond
doubt. But, upon a liberal view of the decisions above cited and
other decisions of this Court (
see Kennington v. Palmer,
255 U. S. 100, and
cases referred to in footnote), we accept the conclusion of the
lower court, based on the decisions of this Court, that, if the
statutes under review are unconstitutional, appellants are entitled
to equitable relief, and pass to a consideration of the
constitutional questions.
Page 266 U. S. 501
1. The specific complaint is that the word "kosher" and the
phrase "orthodox Hebrew religious requirements" are so indefinite
and uncertain as to cause the statutes to be unconstitutional for
want of any ascertainable standard of guilt. It is in support of
this assumption that appellants allege they are unable to determine
with any degree of certainty whether a particular meat product is
kosher, and, when called upon at their peril to make a
determination and label the product accordingly, they have decided
and will continue to decide that all of the products sold by them
are nonkosher. But obviously the statutes put no such burden upon
them, since they expressly require that any representation that a
product is kosher must not only be false, but made with intent to
defraud. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York,
upholding the validity of a statute substantially the same as those
now under review, in
People v. Altas, 183 App.Div. 595,
596, 597, thus characterized it:
"The purpose of the statute, manifestly, is to prevent and
punish fraud in the sale of meets or meat preparation, and it only
operates on those who knowingly violate its provisions, for it is
expressly provided that there must be both an intent to defraud and
a false representation."
It thus appears that, whatever difficulty there may be in
reaching a correct determination as to whether a given product is
kosher, appellants are unduly apprehensive of the effect upon them
and their business, of a wrong conclusion in that respect, since
they are not required to act at their peril but only to exercise
their judgment in good faith, in order to avoid coming into
conflict with the statutes. Indeed, putting the statutes aside,
such judgment they would be bound to exercise upon ordinary
principles of fair dealing. By engaging in the business of selling
kosher products, they in effect assert an honest purpose to
distinguish to the best of their judgment between
Page 266 U. S. 502
what is and what is not kosher. The statutes require no more.
Furthermore, the evidence, while conflicting, warrants the
conclusion that the term "kosher" has a meaning well enough defined
to enable one engaged in the trade to correctly apply it at least
as a general thing. If exceptional cases may sometimes arise where
opinions might differ, that is no more than is likely to occur, and
does occur, in respect of many criminal statutes either upheld
against attack or never assailed as indefinite. In
Nash v.
United States, 229 U. S. 373,
229 U. S.
376-377, this Court had before it a similar contention
in respect of the Anti-Trust Act, and disposed of it as
follows:
"And thereupon it is said that the crime thus defined by the
statute contains in its definition an element of degree as to which
estimates may differ, with the result that a man might find himself
in prison because his honest judgment did not anticipate that of a
jury of less competent men. . . ."
"But, apart from the common law as to restraint of trade thus
taken up by the statute, the law is full of instances where a man's
fate depends on his estimating rightly -- that is, as the jury
subsequently estimates it -- some matter of degree. If his judgment
is wrong, not only may be incur a fine or a short imprisonment, as
here; he may incur the penalty of death."
See also Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1),
212 U. S. 86,
212 U. S. 109;
Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426,
239 U. S. 434;
Sligh v. Kirkwood, 237 U. S. 52;
Coomer v. United States, 213 F. 1, 5. Many illustrations
will readily occur to the mind, as, for example, statutes
prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors and statutes
prohibiting the transmission through the mail of obscene
literature, neither of which have been found to be fatally
indefinite because. in some instances. opinions differ in respect
of what falls within their terms. Moreover, as already suggested,
since the statutes require a specific intent to defraud
Page 266 U. S. 503
in order to encounter their prohibitions, the hazard of
prosecution which appellants fear loses whatever substantial
foundation it might have in the absence of such a requirement.
Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343,
246 U. S.
348.
2. Lewis & Fox Company is a Massachusetts corporation
conducting a general provision supply business, including the
shipment and sale of original packages into and within the State of
New York. It is this situation which forms the basis of the
contention that the commerce clause is violated. It is enough to
say that the statutes now assailed are not aimed at interstate
commerce, do not impose a direct burden upon such commerce, make no
discrimination against it, are fairly within the range of the
police power of the state, bear a reasonable relation to the
legitimate purpose of the enactments, and do not conflict with any
congressional legislation. Under these circumstances, they are not
invalid because they may incidentally effect interstate commerce.
Sligh v. Kirkwood, 237 U. S. 52,
237 U. S. 60,
61;
Savage v. Jones, 225 U. S. 501,
225 U. S.
524-526.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS took no part in the consideration of this
case.