Woods v. State

• Decision Date: 11 March 1957
• Docket Number: No. 29439,29439
• Citation: 236 Ind. 423,140 N.E.2d 752
• Parties: Norman WOODS, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 752

140 N.E.2d 752

236 Ind. 423

Norman WOODS, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 29439.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 11, 1957.

James D. Lopp, Theodore Lockyear, Jr., Evansville, for appellant.

Edwin K. Steers, Atty. Gen., Owen S. Boling, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.

ARTERBURN, Judge.

This is an appeal by Norman Woods from a judgment of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court in a trial without a jury. Appellant was convicted under Count 2 of an affidavit charging him with obtaining property under false pretense.

The appellant assigns as sole error the overruling of his motion for a new trial, and presents in the argument section of his brief two main points, namely: (1) the overruling of appellant's motion to quash Count 2 of the affidavit; (2) that the finding of the court is not sustained by sufficient evidence.

The appellant in support of his position contends that the rule of ejusdem generis applies in construing the statute which sets out the character of the property that is subjected to the crime of being obtained under or by means of false pretense. In this case the affidavit charged and the proof showed that the appellant obtained a Remington shotgun of the value of $93.35 by means of a certain forged invoice bearing the name Clyde Dukes. The statute upon which this charge is based reads as follows:

'Whoever, with intent to defraud another, designedly, by color of any false token or writing, or any false pretense, obtains the signature of any person or persons, firm or corporation to any written instrument, or obtains from any person, persons, firm or corporation any money, or the transfer of any bond, bill, receipt, promissory note, draft, or check, or thing of value, or whoever sells, barters, or disposes of, or offers to sell, barter or dispose of any transfer, bond, bill, receipt, promissory note, draft or check, or anything of value, knowing the signature of the maker, indorser, or guarantor thereof to have been obtained by any false pretense, shall, on conviction, be imprisoned * * *.' Acts 1907, ch. 228, § 1, p. 431, being § 10-2103, Burns' 1956 Replacement.

The appellant directs our attention specifically to the words 'obtains from any person, persons, firm or corporation any money, or the transfer of any bond, bill, receipt, promissory note, draft, or check, or thing of value.' It is appellant's position that under the rule of ejusdem generis to sustain the conviction, the evidence must show that the appellant obtained property limited to the class enumerated; that the specific phrase 'or thing of value' means in reality like things of value, such as those previously enumerated--commercial paper and like intangibles.

The doctrine of ejusdem generis is a well-known principle of limitation which is used in interpretations to confine a general catchall phrase to a classification covered by the previous enumerations. Miller v. State, 1889, 121 Ind. 294, 23 N.E. 94; Wiggins v. State, 1909, 172 Ind. 78, 87 N.E. 718; North American Acc. Ins. Co. v. Pitts, 1925, 213 Ala. 102, 104 So. 21, 40 A.L.R. 1171; United States v. Florida East Coast Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 1915, 222 F. 33; 28 C.J.S., Ejusdem, p. 1049.

The course of this doctrine in Indiana has not been smooth. In McNamara v. State, 1932, 203 Ind. 596, 181 N.E. 512, 514, the principle of ejusdem generis was approved but it was held not applicable to the words 'any pecuniary advantage.' In Sherfey v. City of Brazil, 1938, 213 Ind. 493, 13 N.E.2d 568, 569, it was held 'any * * * public place' was not limited to the previous enumeration of streets and alleys, but included municipal parks, and the rule was not invoked. In Dowd v. Sullivan, 1940, 217 Ind. 196, 27 N.E.2d 82, on the contrary it was held 'any prisoner' was limited only to those under the control of the Board of Managers of the Reformatory. In Short v. State, 1954, 234 Ind. 17, 122 N.E.2d 82, 83, this court held a pop bottle was included in 'any other deadly or dangerous weapon', although bottles and such like things were not included in the group specifically enumerated in the criminal statute.

We grant that the case here is a typical one for consideration of the doctrine of ejusdem generis; however, it is not one of mandatory application. In our opinion it is merely one of a number of helpful aids used in the various methods of reaching the meaning intended where vagueness and uncertainty are claimed to exist. As Professor Horack says, 'Fortunately, the maxim of ejusdem generis is not a compelling rule, and as frequently as it is applied it is ignored or rejected.' The Disintegration of Statutory Construction (1949), 24 Ind.L.J. 335, 339; 82 C.J.S., Statutes, § 332 b, p. 662.

On the motion to quash it is claimed that there is an existing uncertainty and indefiniteness in the offense charged by reason of the statute being too broad and indefinite unless the rule of ejusdem generis is applied, and as a result of such application a shotgun does not fall within the class enumerated. Such contentions, which are frequently presented in the construction of legislation, places the draftsman between the proverbial two horns of a dilemma. If he enumerates and specifies he hazards a limitation to a narrow classification under ejusdem generis, while if he uses words of general import he faces the risk that the wording will be void for uncertainty and vagueness.

It is trite to say, but still true that words, after all, are merely signs or symbols of meaning. The meaning of the same words varies with the person, the time, and the place, not to mention other surrounding circumstances. In the expression of our ideas and meaning we strive with inexact tools to hue out works of refinement with precise lines, never able to reach perfection. The writing of instructions to juries is another field in which we are confronted eternally with like attempts and failures at such exactness and precision. The extrinsic and influencing factors in the use of words should never be eliminated in our consideration of the meaning intended.

In the process of interpretation the court's main 'rule' should be to use all sources available and relevant to determine how the legislature intended the statute to operate, and not place itself in a straitjacket under the guise of intrinsic limitations. 82 C.J.S., Statutes, § 332 b, p. 662.

A play may be made here with the words 'any bond, bill, receipt, promissory note, draft, or check, or thing of value', in an attempt to reach a meaning. It might be urged that if the legislature had intended to restrict the meaning of 'or thing of value' it would have done so by using the words 'like things of value.' We are not, however, in statutory construction confined to the four corners of the instrument, so to speak, in search for the correct meaning. We may look outside for any relevant help available.

We find that the statute under consideration is the only general criminal statute on false pretense. To be realistic in this case if the appellant had read the statute or sought advice from counsel prior to the alleged offense, could it be said he would have been misled in believing that procuring a shotgun by false pretense would not come within the terms 'or thing of value?' Any reasonable person would recognize that a gun is a thing of value. 'Rules' of interpretation are applicable where uncertainty exists. If rigidly applied they many times cause as much uncertainty as certainty in the law and occasional resulting absurdities in meaning. When the application of a rule...