Commonwealth v. Liberty Products Co.

• Decision Date: 27 February 1925
• Docket Number: 103-1925
• Citation: 84 Pa.Super. 473
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Liberty Products Company, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

84 Pa.Super. 473

Commonwealth v. Liberty Products Company, Appellant

No. 103-1925

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

February 27, 1925

Argued December 8, 1924

Appeal by defendant, from judgment of Q. S. Beaver Co., Sept Sessions, 1923, No. 18, in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Liberty Products Company.

Indictment for manufacture and possession of intoxicating liquors under Act of March 27, 1923, P. L. 34. Before Reader, J.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Verdict of guilty on which judgment of sentence was passed. Defendant appealed.

Error assigned was the charge of the court, answers to points and refusal to direct a verdict in favor of the defendant.

William A. McConnell, and with him W. D. Craig, for appellant. -- A corporation cannot be convicted of a criminal offense where the act committed is not the act of the corporation, but is committed by unintentional mistake of a mere employee Lawson v. Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1 Grant's Cases 329; Delaware Division Canal Co. v Com., 60 Pa. 367; Com. v. Punxsutawney Street Passenger Railway Company, 24 County Court Reports 25; Com. v. Holstine, 132 Pa. 357.

Lawrence M. Sebring, and with him J. Blaine McGoun, District Attorney for appellee, cited: Sec. 417 Bishop on Criminal Law, 9th Edition; Thompson on Corporations, 2d ed., section 5639; Baker v. State (Supreme Court of Tenn., 1923), 248 S.W. 548-550; section 3028, 14A Corpus Juris.

Before Orlady, P. J., Porter, Henderson, Trexler, Keller, Linn and Gawthrop, JJ.

OPINION

KELLER, J.

The indictment charged appellant, (a corporation) and several natural persons, with the unlawful manufacture and possession of intoxicating liquors. Appellant's business was the manufacture of cereal beverage, for which it held a permit from the federal government. In manufacturing such beverage the process first requires the making of beer or other alcoholic malt or brewed liquor and then the elimination of the unlawful excess alcohol by boiling until it contains less than one-half of one per cent alcohol by volume. Under the express terms of the Act of March 27, 1923, P. L. 34, it is not unlawful for such liquor to contain more than one-half of one per cent of alcohol, during the process of manufacture only; but if it is drawn off from the manufacturing vats into barrels or other receptacles intended for storage, sale or delivery, while still containing any of such excess alcohol, it constitutes an unlawful manufacture and possession.

The evidence established that on August 13, 1923, at about six o'clock in the evening the State Police found employees of the defendant corporation loading onto freight cars at Aliquippa for transportation to Pittsburgh 391 barrels of liquor which on examination proved to contain from 3 1/2% to 6% of alcohol by volume. Under the 4th and 13th sections of the Act of 1923, supra, this made out a prima facie case of unlawful manufacture and possession sufficient to take the case to the jury and support a conviction.

The defense was that in drawing off and loading this beer its employee in charge of the work, Wolfgang Haupt, made an unintentional mistake, by filling the barrels from Vat 10, which contained beverage in process of manufacture, instead of from Vat 9, which contained lawful cereal beverage ready for shipment.

The learned trial judge directed the jury to consider this evidence in connection with some suspicious and apparently incriminating circumstances not necessary to be referred to at length, for the purpose of determining in the first instance whether or not the beer had been drawn off from the storage tank and put in the barrels by mistake; but later instructed them, in effect, that as regards the corporation defendant it made no difference whether the beer was knowingly taken from the storage tanks or was done by mistake, ignorantly, by some employee of the company. If this is a correct statement of the law the appeal must fall.

Ordinarily intent is a necessary ingredient of a criminal offense, but there are well recognized exceptions to this rule, as respects acts made criminal by statute. The subject is treated in Greenleaf on Evidence (Vol. 3, sec. 21) as follows: " Ignorance or mistake of fact may in some cases be admitted as an excuse; as where a man intending to do a lawful act, does that which is unlawful. . . . This rule would seem to hold good in all cases when the act, if done knowingly, would be malum in se. But where a statute commands that an act be done or omitted, which, in the absence of such statute, might have been done or omitted without culpability, ignorance of the fact or state of things contemplated by the statute, it seems, will not excuse its violation. Thus, for example, where the law enacts the forfeiture of a ship having smuggled goods on board, and such goods are secreted on board by some of the crew, the owner and officers being alike innocently ignorant of the fact, yet the forfeiture is incurred, notwithstanding their ignorance. Such is also the case in regard to many other fiscal, police and other laws and regulations, for the mere violation of which, irrespective of the motives or knowledge of the party, certain penalties are enacted; for the law, in these cases, seems to bind the party to know the facts and to obey the law at his peril." Thus, under section 17 of the Act of May 13, 1887, P. L. 108, forbidding the furnishing of intoxicating liquors to minors, and persons of known intemperate habits, it was not a valid defense to a prosecution for selling liquor to a minor that the defendant or his employee did not know that the buyer was a minor: In re Carlson's License, 127 Pa. 330, 333; or a person of known intemperate habits: Com. v. Zelt, 138 Pa. 615. He took the risk when the sale was made. It required the Act of May 25, 1897, P. L. 93, before the defense could be presented that the liquor had not been furnished knowingly or negligently: Com. v. Terry, 15 Pa.Super. 608, 610. The indictment did not have to charge, nor was it necessary to prove, that the liquor had been furnished " knowingly and wilfully" : Com. v. Sellers, 130 Pa. 32, 35. Where the statute forbids the sale of liquors it is not necessary in a prosecution for its violation to prove a criminal intent; if the sale be contrary to law, the intent is immaterial: Com. v. Holstine, 132 Pa. 357, 361. It is not a defense to a prosecution for the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors that the defendant did not know the liquor sold was intoxicating: Com. v. Boynton, 2 Allen (Mass.) 160; Com. v. Goodman, 97 Mass. 117; or believed it was medicine and not intoxicating: Com. v. Hallett, 103 Mass. 452. It was held in Com. v. Weiss, 139 Pa. 247, that a restaurant keeper who furnished oleomargarine with his meals, not knowing it was oleomargarine but believing it was butter, was guilty of violating the provisions of the Act of May 21, 1885, P. L. 22, the court holding that it was for the legislature to determine whether the threatened public injury was such as to justify an absolute and indiscriminate prohibition, and that there was nothing in the statute to imply that the forbidden act must have been done knowingly or wilfully. It is apparent from the opinion that the ruling would have been the same if the defendant had purchased both oleomargarine and butter and by an innocent mistake had furnished his customers the former instead of the latter. See also Com. v. Mellet, 27 Pa.Super. 41. In Com. v. Pflaum, 50 Pa.Super. 55 (affirmed, 236 Pa. 294) it was held that the defendant could be convicted of violating the Act of May 13, 1909, P. L. 520, forbidding the use of sulphur dioxide in confectionery although he did not know that the merchandise sold by him contained the prohibited substance. The same ruling has been made with respect to other violations of the pure food laws; as for example, the sale of milk just as received by defendant: Com. v. Hufnal, 4 Pa.Super. 301; the sale of renovated butter, bought by defendant as creamery butter and believed by him to be such: Com. v. Seiler, 20 Pa.Super. 260; the...