People v. Abramson
| Decision Date | 15 April 1913 |
| Citation | 208 N.Y. 138,101 N.E. 849 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. ABRAMSON et al. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.
Action by the People against Nathan Abramson and others to recover penalties for violations of the Agricultural Law. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (147 App. Div. 491,131 N. Y. Supp. 798) affirming a verdict for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.
C. L. Andrus, of Stamford, for appellants.
C. R. O'Connor, of Hobart, for respondent.
This action was brought to recover penalties incurred by the defendants for violations of the Agricultural Law of the state in the sale of cans of adulterated milk. Upon the trial, at the conclusion of the evidence, the court directed a verdict for the plaintiff for an aggregate amount of penalties, based on the number of cans sold, at the minimum sum imposed for each violation. The Appellate Division has affirmed the judgment, and upon this appeal the questions presented for our consideration relate to the constitutionality of the statute, in its application to the transactions in question, and to the right of the plaintiff to recover a penalty upon each can of milk. The material facts of the case are few and are not in dispute. The defendants, having an office in the city of New York, conducted a creamery at Dunraven, in Delaware county of this state. They contracted with two persons also doing business in the city of New York for the sale to them of milk at a price less than they were selling to the New York trade. Between certain dates there were delivered to the vendees, under the agreement, in all 336 cans of milk, containing each 40 quarts of milk, and from each of which there had been taken on the average 3 1/2 quarts of cream. After being so skimmed, the cans were filled up with other skimmed milk. In that condition they were delivered upon the cars of the Delaware & Eastern Railroad Company at Dunraven; each can bearing a tag addressed to the vendee in New York. The vendee paid the freight, and the cans of milk were delivered to him at the terminal station of the railroad in Weehawken, in the state of New Jersey. There was evidence on the part of the defendants, which we will assume to be true for the purposes of the case, to the effect that this milk was sold under an agreement that it should conform to the New Jersey standard and that it was to be sold by the vendees within the state of New Jersey, where they were also conducting a milk business.
[1][2] The case may be considered, therefore, as one of a contract made between residents of this state for the sale of milk, which, for being adulterated, according to the standard fixed by a statute of this state was forbidden to be sold and which the defendants claim to have sold for use in the vendees' business in another state. Section 32 of the Agricultural Law of the state (Consol. Laws 1909, c. 1) provides that Section 30 of the same law provides that
It is claimed, in substance, by the appelants that the statute, in so far as it applies to a sale of milk in this state to persons engaged in conducting a business in a foreign state, where the milk was to be used, is an attempt to regulate interstate commerce, and is therefore in contravention of the federal Constitution. The object and intent of the statute, as declared by section 51, are ‘to prevent deception in the sale of dairy products, and to preserve the public health, which is endangered by the manufacture, sale and use of the articles or substances herein regulated or prohibited.’ I am quite unable to perceive how a statute of the state, with such a purpose and with such fair and wholesome provisions, could be held to constitute an...
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...305; St. John v. New York, 201 U.S. 633, 26 S.Ct. 554, 50 L.Ed. 896; People v. Koster, 121 App.Div. 852, 106 N.Y.S. 793; People v. Abramson, 208 N.Y. 138, 101 N.E. 849; People v. Frudenberg, 209 N.Y. 218, 103 N.E. 166; People v. Beakes Dairy Co., 222 N.Y. 416, 119 N.E. 115, 3 A.L.R. 1260; P......
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...of an unmistakable legislative intent to do so (People v. Spencer, 201 N.Y. 105, 109, 94 N.E. 614, 615-616; People v. Abramson, 208 N.Y. 138, 143, 101 N.E. 849, 850-851). However, a clear legislative intent to impose aggregate penalties is clear in subdivision 'f, par. b' of the code which ......
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