In re Indusco, Inc.

15 F.R.D. 7, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3741
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedSeptember 24, 1953
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 15 F.R.D. 7 (In re Indusco, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Indusco, Inc., 15 F.R.D. 7, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3741 (S.D.N.Y. 1953).

Opinion

DIMOCK, District Judge.

Motion to vacate or modify a court order requiring the production of certain books, papers and documents.

The order was obtained by the Acting Director of the Foreign Assets Control Division of the Treasury Department. The motion is made by Indusco, Inc., the corporation whose records are sought. Two main points are raised. First, that the Treasury Department has not shown that the records demanded are relevant and, second, that two of the documents called for are the private papers of Ida Pruitt, secretary of the corporation.

Apparently all of the documents in Ida Pruitt's possession relating to Indusco were exhibited to a representative of the Treasury Department on March 26, 1953, but when later an administrative subpoena was served only photostatic copies of portions of those documents allegedly belonging to Indusco and then in Ida Pruitt’s possession were supplied. The complete documents were submitted to me on the argument of the motion.

With respect to the first point, the question seems to be whether the order has been complied with by the submission of photostats of portions of certain documents. These documents consist of [9]*9corporate minutes and correspondence from or to Indusco and they are concededly corporate records. Implicit in Indusco’s position is the contention that it need not supply the complete documents but that it, or at least the court, may excise parts deemed irrelevant to the Treasury Department’s lawful inquiry.

The government relies upon Section 5(b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act, 50 U.S.C.App. § 5(b) and the regulations issued thereunder, 31 C.F.R. (1949 Ed.1952 Cum.Supp.) 500.101-500.808, for its power to investigate. The statutory section provides:

“(b) (1) During the time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or otherwise, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—
“(A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, and the importing, exporting, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion, currency or securities, and
“(B) investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; * * and the President shall, in the manner hereinabove provided, require any person to keep a full record of, and to furnish under oath, in the form of reports or otherwise, complete information relative to any act or transaction referred to in this subdivision either before, during, or after the completion thereof, or relative to any interest in foreign property, or relative to any property in which any foreign country or any national thereof has or has had any interest, or as may be otherwise necessary to enforce the provisions of this subdivision, and in any case in which a report could be required, the President may, in the manner hereinabove provided, require the production, or if necessary to the national security or defense, the seizure, of any books of account, records, contracts, letters, memoranda, or other papers, in the custody or control of such person; * *

The certificate of incorporation of Indusco, Inc., filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York on December 13, 1940, states that the corporation is a membership corporation dedicated :

“(a) To carry on campaigns to inform the American people of the work of the Chinese Industrial Cooperative and other agencies in China with similar objectives.
“(b) To establish and promote co-operative industrial projects for the people of China.
“(c) To raise funds for the benefit of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives, and other similar relief and reconstruction organizations in China.
“(d) To support the Chinese industrial co-operative movement in all possible ways, and to aid it in maintaining high standards of technique and management.”

Similarly the application of Indusco, Inc., for a license to permit the corporation to send funds out of this country and to Communist China, which was filed with the Treasury Department on May [10]*1016, 1951, states the business of the cor-portion:

“(5) Since September 1940 the applicant has been engaged in the business of raising voluntary donated funds for the industrial cooperatives in China, and since 1945 has raised money to aid the Sandan Bailie School, a cooperative training school for young people in China.”

The order requires the production of all documents relating to transactions of the corporation subject to the regulations above mentioned and three letters specifically described. All that I need find to sustain the order is that the documents are relevant to a lawfully authorized inquiry, Oklahoma Press Pub. Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 66 S.Ct. 494, 90 L.Ed. 614, and that is plain from the terms of the statute, the statement of the corporate purposes and the language of the court order. Sifting through the various documents and excising irrelevant matter, however, presents a different question. I take the law to be that the Fifth Amendment by virtue of the self-incrimination provision affords no protection for the corporation or for its officers against the requirement of production of corporate records. Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 208, 66 S.Ct. 494, supra. Since these are corporate documents and Indusco makes no other claim of privilege or for secrecy this case does not present the kind of situation that on occasion arises in proceedings for discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., where restrictions or conditions upon discovery are imposed. See 4 Moore’s Federal Practice, 2nd Ed., 2477-2479. In the absence of a substantial claim of that sort I doubt very much that the inquiry should be restricted or that the court should be put to the task of examining corporate documents to see if particular sentences, paragraphs or any parts of documents are strictly speaking irrelevant to the inquiry being made. This would seem to be the view of the court in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Vacuum Can Co., 7 Cir., 157 F.2d 530, certiorari denied 330 U.S. 820, 67 S.Ct. 770, 91 L.Ed. 1271.

Rather than rest my decision on that ground, however, I will consider the question of the propriety of the excisions made here. Certainly Indusco cannot be permitted to limit production to those portions of the documents that it deems come within the scope of the statute and the regulations. See Fleming v.

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Bluebook (online)
15 F.R.D. 7, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3741, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-indusco-inc-nysd-1953.