Riley v. State

• Decision Date: 13 March 1945
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 209.
• Citation: 23 So.2d 10,32 Ala.App. 180
• Parties: RILEY v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

23 So.2d 10

32 Ala.App. 180

RILEY v. STATE.

5 Div. 209.

Alabama Court of Appeals

March 13, 1945

Rehearing Denied June 26, 1945.

Middleton & Atkinson and J. B. Atkinson, all of Clanton, for appellant.

Wm. N. McQueen, Acting Atty. Gen., and Forman Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

RICE Judge.

'No person within this state shall manufacture for sale therein have in possession with intent to sell, offer or expose for sale, sell, or deliver any article of food or drugs which is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this article.' Code 1940, Title 2, Article 18, Section 304.

Code 1940, Title 2, Section 310 (a part of the above cited Article 18), provides that: 'Drugs shall also be deemed misbranded in the following cases: * * * If its package or label shall bear or contain any statement, design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect of such article or any of the ingredients or substances contained therein which is false or fraudulent.'

Under the law, as we have just quoted hereinabove, the following complaint (omitting merely formal parts) was filed against appellant in the circuit court, where his case was regularly brought by him on appeal from the Inferior Law Court of Chilton County, where he had been duly tried and convicted viz.:

'The State of Alabama, by its solicitor, complains of William Riley that, within twelve months before the commencement of this prosecution William Riley manufactured for sale, or did have in possession with intent to sell, or offered or exposed for sale, or did sell, or delivered an article of food or drugs which was misbranded, in that he manufactured for sale Mineral Rock of All Ages, or did have in possession with intent to sell Mineral Rock of All Ages, or offered or exposed for sale, or did sell or deliver Mineral Rock of All Ages, an article of food or drugs, which was misbranded, in that it contained statements, designs or devices, regarding the curative or therapeutic effect of such article Rock of All Ages, or the ingredients or substances contained therein, to-wit: that said Mineral Rock of All Ages was a treatment or medicine for 'Cancer, Rheumatism, Kidney and Bladder Trouble, Indigestion, Constipation, Flux, Pellagra, Eczema, Boils, Old Sores, Blood Poison and all skin diseases, Sore Throat, Pyorrhea, Female Complaints of Malaria,' which statements, designs or devices, are false or fraudulent, contrary to law.'

Appellant's able counsel filed twenty-seven grounds of demurrer to the foregoing complaint; and each of them has had our careful study.

But we do not see the need of an extended discussion. Suffice to say, the decisions cited to us from the Federal Courts seem beside the point, for the simple reason that while our Statute may have been, in a large measure, an enactment by our Legislature of the Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906, Title 21, U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.--now repealed--yet there were specific differences which render of no effect, persuasive or otherwise, the said Federal decisions mentioned. And we are left to our own resources.

All that seems necessary to be said is, that so far as we can discern, the complaint on which appellant was put to trial substantially followed the wording of the Statute denouncing the offense. And this, according to numerous decisions of this court, is sufficient. Nix v. State, 27 Ala.App. 94, 166 So. 716; Oliver v. State, 16 Ala.App. 533, 79 So. 313; Collins v. State, 28 Ala.App. 400, 185 So. 779, and many other cases easily located.

The demurrers to the complaint were overruled without error.

Issue being joined upon appellant's single plea of not guilty, the State offered evidence showing without dispute that appellant sold a substance called Mineral Rock of All Ages, packed in a small card board container upon which was carried the legend:

'Mineral Rock of All Ages

'Nature's Own Remedy

'Won't you give it a trial for Cancer, Rheumatism, Kidney and Bladder trouble, Indigestion, Constipation, Flux, Pellagra Eczema, Boils, Old sores, Blood Poison and all skin diseases, Sore Throat, Pyorrhea, Female complaints, Malaria.

'Price, $1.00 Per Package; Six for $5.00

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