Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. United States

Citation293 F. 8
Decision Date05 October 1923
Docket Number6278.
PartiesKANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. UNITED STATES.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

James B. McDonough, of Fort Smith, Ark., for plaintiff in error.

S. S Langley, U.S. Atty., of Fort Smith, Ark. (W. H. Dunblazier Asst. U.S. atty., of Fort Smith, Ark., on the brief), for the United States.

Before STONE, Circuit Judge, and MORRIS and FARIS, District Judges.

FARIS District Judge.

Plaintiff in error, hereinafter called defendant, was convicted under an information charging it with accepting for shipment and transporting in interstate commerce, certain cattle from a quarantined area or district of Arkansas to the state of Texas, without having complied with a regulation promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, which required the waybill pursuant to which said cattle were so moved, to have written or stamped thereon the words 'Southern cattle.'

A number of errors are urged for reversal. All these fall however, within one or the other of three classes, namely: (a) Alleged errors bottomed on the refusal to admit certain evidence; (b) errors in the charge as given; and (c) errors in refusing to charge as requested by defendant.

Touching alleged errors in refusing to admit evidence offered by defendant, it is too obvious for argument that the trial court was correct in its ruling. Defendant offered to have one of the witnesses explain the meaning of the words 'accepted for immediate slaughter,' which words were contained on the waybill, as also to have the witness testify that the words above quoted from the waybill had theretofore, in other cases, been accepted by the government as equivalent to the words 'Southern cattle,' which were required by the regulation of the Secretary of Agriculture to be on the waybill.

It needs no argument or authority to demonstrate that no error was committed in the above behalves by the trial court. The words 'accepted for immediate slaughter' were clearly used in their ordinary significance as words in the English language, and were not technical or trade words, and so the jury was as capable, as was the witness of construing them from all that appears on the record. If the witness was in fact better qualified than was the jury to construe these words, no foundation was laid showing this. It is obvious that the words 'accepted for immediate slaughter' do not convey the idea that the cattle had been exposed to splenetic or Texas fever, or that they had emanated from a quarantined district, or that they were 'Southern cattle.' These identical words could be said with equal truth of any shipment of fat cattle designed to be sold in the ordinary course of business to any packing company in Chicago, St. Joseph, or Kansas City. The terms here used but express a fact which is universally known to exist with regard to beef steers shipped to packers for slaughter and conversion into food products.

The position of defendant upon the fact of alleged error, bottomed on refusal to allow evidence of former actions of the government in accepting in such cases alleged equivalent words, in its final analysis is that this defendant is not guilty, because others did the like and were not prosecuted. Men kill other men, and sometimes they are not prosecuted, or, being prosecuted, they are acquitted, but such lack of prosecution and such acquittal do not excuse murder. The mere statement of the contention, when baldly made, discloses its unsoundness.

The strenuously urged question is whether there should not have been a directed verdict. Defendant was charged by an information with a criminal offense. The statute makes the offense attempted to be defined a misdemeanor. Barring the unnecessary written answer filed by defendant, in lieu of an oral plea of not guilty, the case was tried as a criminal case, and the verdict was the usual verdict in a criminal case. The statute under which defendant was convicted, so far as pertinent, provides in section 2 thereof as follows:

'No railroad company * * * shall receive for transportation or transport from any quarantined state * * * or from the quarantined portion of any state * * * into any other state * * * any cattle or other live stock, except as hereinafter provided. ' Section 2, Act March 3, 1905, 33 Stat. 1264 (Comp. St. Sec. 8702).

The provisions thereafter contained in the act, and which...

To continue reading

Request your trial
4 cases
  • Johnson v. Pearce
    • United States
    • Louisiana Supreme Court
    • April 24, 1975
    ...specifically the statutes have been held not to contain an improper delegation of legislative functions. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 293 F. 8 (8th Cir. 1923), and United States v. Pennsylvania Co., 235 F. 961 Almost all, if not all, of the states of this Union have joined......
  • Spaugh v. Ross
    • United States
    • Wyoming Supreme Court
    • January 31, 1928
    ... ... 163; Colo. Power Co. v ... Halderman, 295 F. 178; Kansas City v. U.S., 293 ... F. 8; Martin v. Bennett, 291 F. 626; ... ...
  • Di Santo v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • December 7, 1937
    ...v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 692, 12 S.Ct. 495, 36 L.Ed. 294; U.S. v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506, 31 S.Ct. 480, 55 L.Ed. 563; Kansas City Sou. Ry. Co. v. U. S., 8 Cir., 293 F. 8, 11. The necessity and propriety of empowering the Commissioner to require one dealer to make returns without requiring the......
  • Connolly v. Elder
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • October 19, 1923
    ... ... 5 CONNOLLY et al. v. ELDER et al. [a1] No. 4014.United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.October 19, 1923 ... ...

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT