United States v. Swift & Co., Civ. A. No. 216.
| Decision Date | 31 December 1943 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 216. |
| Citation | 53 F. Supp. 1018 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Georgia |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. SWIFT & CO. et al. |
T. Hoyt Davis, U. S. Atty., and Chas. W. Walker and Henry S. Barnes, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Macon, Ga., for plaintiff.
Neal J. Huff, of Chicago, Ill. (Jones, Jones & Sparks, A. O. B. Sparks and Chas. M. Cork, all of Macon, Ga., of counsel), for defendants.
After having heard the evidence and argument of counsel, I make the following findings of fact:
1. Swift & Company is a corporation with an office, agency, and place of business in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia.
2. Between October 10, 1940 and December 19, 1942, the Macon, Georgia, branch of Swift & Company was engaged in manufacturing butter, some of which was shipped in interstate commerce.
3. During said period Swift & Company shipped in interstate commerce butter manufactured from cream, some of which at times had in it rodent hair, feather parts, flies, maggots, and other such filth, and some of which was decomposed and contained mold.
4. The pure and clean cream in the process of manufacture was mixed with the decomposed cream and the cream which contained mold, rodent hair, feather parts, flies, maggots and other such insect filth, and all passed together through the filters, was then pasteurized through the same pasteurizer, held in the same storage vats, and churned together in the same churn.
5. The plant itself is sanitary and the equipment is standard and satisfactory.
6. Some of the butter manufactured from said cream, in spite of filtration through standard filters, contained insect fragments and, in minute quantities, substances which came from broken or partially dissolved insects, and materials which had been a part of the decomposed cream, and mold in such quantities that in ten instances out of fourteen, where the butter was microscopically examined for mold, 100% of the miscroscopic fields examined by the Wildman Method were found to contain mold.
7. There is a general correlation between the microscopic mold parts found in butter and the quality of the cream from which the butter is produced. The presence of microscopic mold in butter in excessive quantities may be accepted as an indication that the cream from which the butter was made either contained filth or was to an extent decomposed. Mold in butter, therefore, is relevant evidence to be considered along with all the other evidence as to the condition of the cream, but it is not necessary in this case to find just what weight should be given to such evidence.
8. Such butter so produced by Swift & Company at its Macon Plant was filthy and unfit for food.
9. Swift & Company, for a number of years, has engaged in a nation-wide program of cream quality improvement and has advocated quality improvement in its dairy products.
10. H. N. Bates, the Macon Manager of Swift & Company during most of 1942, failed to carry out fully the instructions of the management of Swift & Company with regard to the cream quality improvement program in the State of Georgia and the making of mold tests upon the cream from which butter was made at the Macon plant.
11. In October 1942, partially as a result of requests on the part of Swift & Company, the newly organized Dairy Department of Georgia Agricultural College began to interest itself in a cream quality program within the State of Georgia, and in the latter part of that year, also partially through the efforts of Swift & Company, the Georgia Butter Manufacturers' Association was organized and began to participate in a general program of cream quality improvement within the State.
12. After the inception of such program, experts and other representatives of Swift & Company's Cream Improvement Department did active field work in furtherance of cream quality improvement in Georgia.
13. As a result of all of these efforts, the quality of cream being received at the Macon plant of Swift & Company in the latter part of 1943 and the butter produced during that period showed a marked improvement over that produced at the times referred to in the complaint. The butter now scores 89 and 89½.
14. W. W. Joyner, the present Manager of the Macon plant of Swift & Company, has actively participated in this field work and in the Georgia cream quality improvement program.
15. With a continuation of the work being done by the University of Georgia and the members of the Butter Industry of...
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...vacuum. It was early and often stated that the words should have their plain, ordinary common meaning. E. g. United States v. Swift & Co., 53 F.Supp. 1018 (M.D.Ga.1943); United States v. Cassaro, Inc., 443 F.2d 153 (1st Cir. 1971). In any event, under the absolute language of the statute, t......
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...and should not be confined to any scientific or medical definition." Blue Ribbon, 179 F. Supp. 2d at 50, quoting United States v. Swift & Co., 53 F. Supp. 1018 (M.D. Ga. 1943). The Court finds that Defendants violated the FDCA by introducing into interstate commerce food that was prepared u......
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