McHugh v. Placid Oil Co.

• Decision Date: 26 June 1944
• Docket Number: 37300,37301.
• Citation: 19 So.2d 221,206 La. 511
• Parties: McHUGH, Com'r of Conservation, v. PLACID OIL CO. SAME v. HUNT.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

19 So.2d 221

206 La. 511

McHUGH, Com'r of Conservation, v. PLACID OIL CO.

SAME v. HUNT.

Nos. 37300, 37301.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 26, 1944

Rehearing Denied July 14, 1944. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Fred S. LeBlanc, Atty. Gen., and Edward L. Gladney Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

J R. Goff and Blanchard, Goldstein, Walker & O'Quin, all of Shreveport, for defendants and appellees.

HIGGINS Justice.

These are two proceedings in which the State Commissioner of Conservation seeks to obtain separate judgments against the defendants in the sums of $302,000 and $79,000, respectively, as penalties for alleged willful and intentional violations of the provisions of Section 17 of Act 157 of 1940 between the dates of December 1, 1941, and June 1, 1942, in producing oil from wells drilled by them in the Parish of LaSalle and delivering and transporting quantities of it in excess of the allowables fixed for those wells by orders of the Commissioner of Conservation. The petitioner alleges that the defendants' unlawful acts or offenses were first made known to him on August 20, 1942, and the transcript shows that both suits are based entirely on alleged offenses and were filed on May 27, 1943. It appears that the excess oil was used in drilling operations.

Each of the defendants filed a plea averring that the actions based on violations of the penal statute were barred or perempted because the prosecution for the penalty, fine, or forfeiture was not instituted within six months from the time the penalty, fine, or forfeiture was allegedly incurred, as provided by Section 986 of the Revised Statute, as amended by Act 67 of 1926.

The pleas were sustained by the trial judge and the plaintiff appealed.

As the identical issue is involved in each of the cases, they were consolidated in this Court.

The relevant part of Section 17 of Act 157 of 1940 reads:

'Any person who knowingly and willfully violates any provision of this Act, or any rule, regulation, or order of the Commissioner made hereunder, shall, in the event a penalty for such violation is not otherwise provided for herein, be subject to a penalty of not to exceed One Thousand ($1,000.00) Dollars a day for each and every day of such violation, and for each and every act of violation, such penalty to be recovered in a suit in the district court of the parish where the defendant resides, or in the parish of the residence of any defendant if there be more than one defendant, or in the district court of the parish where the violation took place. * * *'

There is a provision in the statute defining the word 'person' so as to include corporations.

It will be observed that the penalty provided for in the statute is for the purpose of inflicting punishment upon the violator of its provisions or any rule, regulation, or order of the Commissioner of Conservation made thereunder. The money to be recovered is not for restitution, compensation or indemnification but is strictly a penalty, fine or forfeiture imposed as a punishment for willful disobedience of the law.

Revised Statute 986, as amended and reenacted by Act 67 of 1926, reads, in part, as follows:

'No person shall be prosecuted, tried or punished for any offense, wilful murder * * * excepted, unless the indictment or presentment for the same be found or exhibited within one (1) year next after the offense shall have been made known to a public officer having the power to direct a public prosecution. Nor shall any person be prosecuted for any fine or forfeiture under any law of this State unless the prosecution for the same shall be instituted within six months of the time of incurring such fine or forfeiture.'

It will be noted that the first part of the paragraph dealing with prescription of offenses, expressly states that the indictment or presentment for the same must be found or exhibited within one year. On the contrary, the latter part of the paragraph relating to fine and forfeiture fixes the prescriptive period at six months and does not contain the words 'indictment or presentment' but the words 'prosecuted' and 'prosecution', which are general enough to include and cover both criminal and civil proceedings. 50 C.J. 795.

In the case of Adams v. Woods, 2 Cranch 336, 337, 2 L.Ed. 297, the statute to be construed read as follows:

"That no person or persons shall be prosecuted, tried or punished for treason or other capital offense aforesaid, willful murder or forgery excepted, unless the indictment for the same shall be found by a grand jury within three years next after the treason or capital offense aforesaid shall be done or committed: Nor shall any person be prosecuted, tried or punished for any offense not capital, nor for any fine or forfeiture under any penal statute, unless the indictment or information for the same shall be found or instituted within in two years from the time of committing the offense, or incurring the fine or forfeiture aforesaid: Provided, that nothing herein contained, shall extend to any person or persons fleeing from justice."

In holding that the statute was applicable to a civil action to recover a penalty, Chief Justice Marshall, as the organ of the United States Supreme Court, on February 18, 1805, said:

'This is an action of debt brought to recover a penalty imposed by the act, entitled 'an act to prohibit the carrying on the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country.'

'It was pleaded in bar of the action, that the offense was not committed within two years previous to the institution of the suit. To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the circuit court being divided on its sufficiency, the point has been certified to this court.

'In the argument, the plaintiff has rested his case on two points. He contends,

'1st. That the act of Congress, pleaded by the defendant, is no bar to an action of debt.

'2d. That if it be a bar, it applies only to the recovery of penalties given by acts which existed at the time of its passage.

'The words of the act are, 'nor shall any person be prosecuted,' &c., Vol. 1, p. 114. It is contended that the prosecutions limited by this law, are those only which are carried on in the form of an indictment or information, and not those where the penalty is demanded by an action of debt.

'But if the words of the act be examined, they will be found to apply not to any particular mode of proceeding, but generally to any prosecution, trial, or punishment for the offense. It is not declared that no indictment shall be found, or information filed, for any offense not capital, or for any fine or forfeiture under any penal statute, unless the same be instituted within two years after the commission of the offense. In that case the act would be pleadable only in bar of the particular action. But it is declared, that 'no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished,'--words which show an intention, not merely to limit any particular form of action, but to limit any prosecution whatever.

'It is true that general expressions may be restrained by subsequent particular words, which show that in the intention of the legislature, those general expressions are used in a particular sense: and the argument is a strong one, which contends that the latter words describing the remedy, imply a restriction on those which precede them. Most frequently they would do so. But in the statute under consideration, a distinct member of the sentence, describing one entire class of offenses, would be rendered almost totally useless by the construction insisted on by the attorney for the United States. Almost every fine or forfeiture under a penal statute, may be recovered by an action of debt as well as by information; and to declare that the information was barred while the action of debt was left without limitation, would be to attribute a capriciousness on this subject to the legislature, which could not be accounted for; and to declare that the law did not apply to cases on which an action of debt is maintainable, would be to overrule express words, and to give the statute almost the same construction which it would receive if one distinct member of the sentence was expunged from it. In this particular case, the statute which creates the forfeiture does not prescribe the mode of demanding it; consequently, either debt or information would lie. It would be singular if the one remedy should be barred and the other left unrestrained.

'In support of the opinion, that an act of limitations to criminal prosecutions can only be used as a bar in cases declared by law to be criminal at the time the act of limitations was passed, unless there be express words extending it to crimes to be created in future. Cunningham's Law Dictionary has been cited.

'The case in Cunningham is reported in 1 Salk. and 5 Mod. and seems to be founded on the peculiar phraseology of the statute of the 21 of James 1 directing informations to be filed in the county in which the offenses were committed. That statute was exponded to extend only to offenses, which at the time of its passage were punishable by law. But the words of the act of congress plainly apply to all fines and forfeitures under any penal act, whenever that act might pass. They are the stronger because not many penal acts were at that time in the code.

'In expounding this law, it deserves some consideration, that if it does not limit actions of debt for penalties, those actions might, in many cases, be brought at any distance of time. This would be utterly repugnant to the genius of our laws. In a country where not even treason can be prosecuted after a lapse of three years, it could scarcely be supposed that an individual would remain forever liable to a pecuniary...