United States v. Strang
| Decision Date | 03 January 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 206,206 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. STRANG et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Solicitor General Frierson, of Chattanooga, Tenn., for the United states.
Mr. John W. Dodge, of Jacksonville, Fla., for defendants in error.
The ultimate question for determination is whether the employment of defendant Strang as an inspector by the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, without more, made him an agent of the government within the meaning of section 41, Criminal Code.
Holding that this employment did not suffice to create the relation alleged, the trial court sustained a demurrer to the indictment. It contains four counts, three of which charge that Strang unlawfully acted as agent of the United States in transacting business with the Duval Ship Outfitting Company, a copartnership of which he was a member, in that while an employee of the Fleet Corporation as an inspector he signed and executed (February, 1919) three separate orders to the Outfitting Company for repairs and alterations on the steamship Lone Star. The other defendants are charged with aiding and abetting him. The trial court and counsel here have treated the fourth count as charging all the defendants with conspiracy to commit the offenses set forth in the three preceding counts. United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300, 39 Sup. Ct. 465, 63 L. Ed. 992, 7 A. L. R. 443.
Counsel for the government maintain that the Fleet Corporation is an agency or instrumentality of the United States formed only as an arm for executing purely governmental powers and duties vested by Congress in the President and by him delegated to it; that the acts of the corporation within its delegated authority are the acts of the United States; that therefore in placing orders with the Duval Company in behalf of the Fleet Corporation while performing the duties as inspector Strang necessarily acted as agent of the United States.
The demurrer was properly sustained.
As authorized by the Act of September 7, 1916 (39 Stat. 728), the United States Shipping Board caused the Fleet Corporation to be organized (April 16, 1917) under laws of the District of Columbia with $50,000,000 capital stock, all owned by the United States, and it became an operating agency of that board. Later, the President directed that the corporation should have and exercise a specified portion of the power and authority in respect of ships granted to him by the Act of June 15, 1917 (40 Stat. 182), and he likewise authorized the Shipping Board to exercise through it another...
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