United States v. Golder, 6442.
| Decision Date | 30 July 1935 |
| Docket Number | No. 6442.,6442. |
| Citation | 11 F. Supp. 870 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. GOLDER et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
Thomas J. Reilly, Asst. U. S. Atty., and Charles D. McAvoy, U. S. Atty., both of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
Otto Kraus, Jr., and Benjamin M. Golder, both of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendants.
These defendants have been indicted for conspiracy to violate the Act of June 13, 1934, c. 482, 48 Stat. 948, Public No. 324, 73d Congress (40 USCA §§ 276b, 276c), which was intended to prohibit and punish a practice sometimes resorted to by public works contractors commonly called the "kick-back." The indictment describes the object of the conspiracy in the same general words used in the act, but it then goes on to set out in detail the specific things which, it says, the defendants conspired to do and these things clearly are not crimes against the United States under the act in question or any other. For that reason the indictment must be quashed.
The act is as follows (section 1 40 USCA § 276b): "* * * whoever shall induce any person employed in the construction, prosecution, or completion of any public building, public work, or building or work financed in whole or in part by loans or grants from the United States, or in the repair thereof to give up any part of the compensation to which he is entitled under his contract of employment, by force, intimidation, threat of procuring dismissal from such employment, or by any other manner whatsoever, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
In the simplest language possible, the thing which the act makes a crime is employing a workman at a certain rate of pay and then compelling him to waive or return some part of his pay by threat of dismissal, force, or intimidation. It is of the essence of the offense that the money which he thus is made to give up is money to which he is entitled under his contract of employment. That is the precise language of the act. "Contract of employment" means the agreement between the contractor and the workman, not the contract between the contractor and the public body in charge of the work. If the workman receives the whole amount of the wages which the employer agreed to pay him when he went to work and is not compelled to give back or to waive any part of it, the act has not been violated. It does not reach (and from the reports of the Committees of the House and Senate apparently was not...
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United States v. Laudani
...The "contract of employment" referred to of course means the contract between the employee and his employer. United States v. Golder et al., D.C.E.D.Pa., 11 F.Supp. 870, 871. Essential, therefore, to the crime as defined by the statute is the impairment, violation or derogation of the emplo......
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State v. Carter
...of his contractual wage to or in favor of or at the instance of the employer or one acting for or on behalf of the employer. In the Golder case, supra, Judge Kirkpatrick of the District Court for the District of Pennsylvania, said that 'If the workman receives the whole amount of the wages ......
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United States v. McGraw, Cr. No. 28885.
...In construing a statute every word must be given its proper effect and meaning in so far as it is possible so to do. United States v. Golder et al., D.C., 11 F.Supp. 870, and United States v. Charlick, D. C., 26 F.Supp. 203, cited by defendants, cannot be considered authoritative here. In t......
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United States v. Charlick, 7657.
...to pay in his contract with the Government or with the general contractor — contracts to which the men were not parties. U. S. v. Golder, D.C., 11 F.Supp. 870. When these men returned to their employer twenty-five cents of each dollar and twenty cents which had been paid them under the eyes......