State v. Welch
| Decision Date | 31 January 1911 |
| Citation | 145 Wis. 86,129 N.W. 656 |
| Parties | STATE v. WELCH. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, Portage County; Charles M. Webb, Judge.
William Welch was convicted of furnishing oleomargarine at a lunch counter without notifying the patrons that the substance was not butter, and he brings error. Affirmed.W. A. Hayes, for plaintiff in error.
Levi H. Bancroft, Atty. Gen., A. C. Titus, Asst. Atty. Gen., and George B. Nelson, Dist. Atty., for the State.
The plaintiff in error after waiving a jury trial was found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $100 under section 4607d, St. 1898, for furnishing oleomargarine at a certain lunch counter in the city of Stevens Point to one R. B. Southard a guest and patron at said lunch counter without first notifying said Southard that the substance so furnished to him was not butter.
It is contended that the accused believed the substance to be butter was without evil intent, and did not furnish the substance within the meaning of the word “furnish” in the statute. The facts shown are: That accused was a waiter in charge of a lunch counter owned and operated by the Wisconsin Central Railway Company. He made requisitions upon some officer or employé of this corporation higher up in the scale of authority for the supplies to be consumed at the lunch counter, received them pursuant to such requisition, and delivered them to the patrons and guests as ordered by the latter. He appears to have had no assistants, no subordinates, and no superiors in making the requisitions receiving the goods or delivering them to the guests or patrons. He gave his immediate superior an order for butter, received a package containing a substance resembling butter and which he believed to be butter. He did not notice whether there was a United States internal revenue stamp on the package, but did notice that it was marked in small print, “U. S. Inspected, or something like that.”
Where, for the purpose of delivering or selling to others one selects and collects, together with opportunity for examination, and thereafter delivers from such collection to guests or patrons, he may be said to furnish the substance so delivered, within the meaning of this statute, although he acts only as the agent of the owner in the whole transaction. This rule is deduced from the statute in question and authorities collected in 4 Words and Phrases relating to the word “furnish” under various circumstances and applied to different legal relations. It is a legal commonplace that penal statutes prohibiting not merely the doing of a described act, but the willful, intentional or malicious doing of such act if they do not require the prosecution in the first instance to prove something more than the doing of the prohibited act, at least permit the accused to exculpate himself by showing that although he did the act he did not do it willfully, intentionally, or maliciously. Where a particular intent is necessary to constitute the offense, as animus furandi in larceny, or malice in murder, ignorance or mistake of fact without negligence on the part of the accused may be ground for acquittal....
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...v. United States, 282 F.2d 302, 310 (8th Cir. 1960); State v. Alfonsi, 33 Wis.2d 469, 476, 147 N.W.2d 550 (1960); Welch v. State, 145 Wis. 86, 129 N.W. 656 (1911); State v. Hartfiel, 24 Wis. 60 (1869).8 State v. Alfonsi, 33 Wis.2d 469, 476, 147 N.W.2d 550, 556 (1960). See also Dennis v. Uni......
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State v. Taylor
...S.Ct. 301, 66 L.Ed. 604, approved in Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 260, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288; Welch v. State, 145 Wis. 86, 129 N.W. 656, 32 L.R.A.,N.S., 746. In this regard we are also guided by the well-established rule that lack of knowledge is not a defense to a charge......
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State v. Cox
...facts; but courts are slow to find a legislative intent to condemn a man for not knowing that which he cannot know." In Welch v. State, 145 Wis. 86, 129 N.W. 656, 32 L. A. (N. S.) 746, cited by defendant, the plaintiff in error was convicted in the lower court of furnishing oleomargarine at......
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Ed. Schuster & Co. v. Steffes
...it conforms to the Fair Trade Act, but this is not of such an onerous character as to invalidate the legislation. Welch v. State, 145 Wis. 86, 129 N.W. 656, 32 L.R.A.,N.S., 746. [10][11] The argument that the act broadens the scope of price fixing in the state under the anti-trust acts and ......