United States v. Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1911
• Docket Number: 5,163-5,164.
• Citation: 187 F. 229
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. STANDARD SANITARY MFG. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

187 F. 229

UNITED STATES v. STANDARD SANITARY MFG. CO. et al.

Nos. 5,163-5,164.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

March 8, 1911

Edwin P. Grosvenor, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., and Frank H. Watson, U.S atty.

Stevenson Carpenter & Butzell, Noble, Jackson & Hubbard, Lyon & Hunter and Moritz Rosenthal, for defendants.

DENISON District Judge (sitting by designation).

The act of February 25, 1903 (32 St.L. 904), as amended June 30, 1906 (34 St.L. 798), provides that no person shall be prosecuted for or on account of any transaction concerning which he, in obedience to a subpoena, gives testimony under oath, in any proceeding under the so-called Sherman act or anti-trust law.

Before the filing of these indictments, the respondents here were made defendants in an equity suit brought by the United States, under section 4 of the anti-trust law to enjoin the same alleged combination which forms the basis of these indictments. The bill did not waive oath to the answer, and so, in legal effect, demanded a sworn answer. The defendants did answer under oath. They now claim freedom from criminal prosecution, and rely upon the terms of the immunity statute above recited.

It is clear that the answers were under oath, and were demanded and given in such a 'proceeding under' the anti-trust act as the immunity statute contemplates. The only question is whether these answers constitute 'testimony (or) evidence under oath,' or 'in obedience to a subpoena.' It is also clear that the filing of the answer may be thought of as something done 'in obedience to a subpoena,' because it is required by law as a step following upon the issue of a chancery subpoena.

So, too, it cannot be doubted that an answer under oath was, under the old equity practice and in a proper case, evidence, and often controlling evidence, upon final disposition of an equity suit.

It follows that, without any distortion of the language into grotesque or unknown form or meaning, the respondents can make it spell immunity in this case; but it does not follow, even under the rules of construction of criminal statutes, that respondents must have a favorable interpretation just because such interpretation is possible. The true criterion must be the fair and reasonable meaning-- the sense in which it is probable that Congress used the chosen words.

Under the equity practice, an answer is a pleading as is a plea or demurrer. This is the primary, and in the typical case the only, function of the answer. Under certain conditions, it took on a secondary or incidental function, and proffered itself as evidence. This was because of the situation attendant upon a bill of discovery. Bills of discovery are now practically unknown, and it is at least doubtful (particularly under this section 4) whether such a bill can now be maintained at all without aid from some other ground of equity jurisdiction. It is not to be inferred, as respondents say, that the individual defendants were joined in the equity suit only for the purpose of obtaining discovery. The reasonable inference is that they were joined so as to obtain an effective injunction.

Bills of discovery being substantially discontinued, the resulting evidential character of the answer has practically disappeared. Skilled equity counsel remember this historical but obsolescent, function of the answer; but probably laymen generally, as well as most lawyers in the code states and many lawyers in other states, would now be surprised to be told that an 'answer' is 'testimony.' I cannot think that...