United States v. Sullivan

67 F. Supp. 192, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2315
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Georgia
DecidedJune 19, 1946
Docket3688
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 67 F. Supp. 192 (United States v. Sullivan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Sullivan, 67 F. Supp. 192, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2315 (M.D. Ga. 1946).

Opinion

DAVIS, District Judge.

This is a criminal prosecution by information in two counts, 1 charging violations *194 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq. It is alleged in each count, in substance, that a drug manufacturer in North Chicago, Illinois, shipped in interstate commerce to its distributor in Atlanta, Georgia, a bottle containing 1,000 Sulfathiazole tablets; that the distributor thereafter sold and delivered said bottle of tablets to the defendant, the owner of drug stores in Columbus, Georgia; that while the tablets in said .bottle were being held for sale at one of the defendant’s drug stores, after shipment in interstate commerce, the defendant caused 12 tablets to be removed from the bottle and placed into a box and disposed of by-sale; that the box into which the tablets were placed and which was sold bore only the label “Sulfothiazal”, as described in Count One and “Sulfathiazole”, as described in Count Two; that the act of removing, repacking, and disposal resulted in the drug being misbranded in two different respects under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

It is charged that these acts constitute violations of Section 301 (k) of the Act, 21 U.S.C.A. § 331 (k). The pertinent provision of this section of the Act is as follows: Section 301, 21 U.S.C.A. § 331: “The following acts and the causing thereof are hereby prohibited: * * * (k) The alteration, mutilation, destruction, obliteration, or removal of the whole or any part of the labeling of, or the .doing of any other act with respect to a, * * * drug * * *, if such act is done while such article is held for sale after shipment in interstate commerce and results in such article being misbranded.”

The defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss setting forth four grounds: (1) the allegations of the information are insufficient as a matter of law to constitute any offense against the laws of the United States; (2) the alleged acts of the defendant were not in interstate commerce and were beyond the power of Congress to regulate, control, or punish; (3) the applicable provisions of the law only apply to misbranding in interstate commerce; (4) that if section 301 (k) of the Act is construed as applying to the alleged acts of the defendant, said section is unconstitutional as being beyond the legislative power of Congress *195 and an invasion of the reserved police powers of the states.

We will consider in this opinion (1) Whether Section 301 (k) of the Act is a lawful exercise by Congress of its powers under the commerce clause of the Constitution ; and (2) Whether the acts of the defendant alleged in the information are cognizable under this section of the Act.

(1) The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, passed in 1938, and its predecessor, the Food and Drag Act of 1906, 21 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq., have been held to be lawful exercises by Congress of its power under the commerce clause of the Constitution. In Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 1911, 220 U.S. 45, at page 57, 31 S.Ct. 364, at page 367, 55 L.Ed. 364, in speaking of the 1906 Act, the court said: “The statute rests, of course, upon the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce; and, defining that power, we have said that no trade can be carried on between the states to which it does not extend, and have further said that it is complete in itself, subject to no limitations except those found in the Constitution.”

In United States v. Dotterweich, 1943, 320 U.S. 277, at page 280, 64 S.Ct. 134, at page 136, 88 L.Ed. 48, a case under the 1938 Act, the court said: “The Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was an exertion by Congress of its power to keep impure and adulterated food and drugs out of the channels of commerce. By the Act of 1938, Congress extended the range of its control over illicit and noxious articles and stiffened the penalties for disobedience.”

It is well settled that congressional authority under the commerce clause includes the power to regulate intrastate activities which “affect” interstate commerce or which are in the “flow” of interstate commerce. It was said in State of Oklahoma v. Guy F. Atkinson Co., 1941, 313 U.S. 508, 526, 61 S.Ct. 1050, 1060, 85 L.Ed. 1487: “As repeatedly recognized by this Court from McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579, to United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L.R. 1430, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce may be aided by appropriate and needful control of activities and agencies which, though intrastate, affect that commerce.”

In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 1937, 301 U.S. 1, 36, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 624, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, the court declared: “The congressional authority to protect interstate commerce from burdens and obstructions is not limited to transactions which can be deemed to be an essential part of a ‘flow’ of interstate or foreign commerce. Burdens and obstructions may be due to injurious action springing from other sources. The fundamental principle is that the power to regulate commerce is the power to enact ‘all appropriate legislation’ for its ‘protection or advancement’ * * *; to adopt measures ‘to promote its growth and insure its safety’ * * *; ‘to foster, protect, control, and restrain’. * * * That power is plenary and may be exerted to protect interstate commerce ‘no matter what the source of the dangers which threaten it.’ ”

The following recent cases have determined some phases of intrastate activities that are properly subject to federal control. Currin v. Wallace, 1939, 306 U.S. 1, 59 S.Ct. 379, 83 L.Ed. 441; Mulford v. Smith, 1939, 307 U.S. 38, 59 S.Ct. 648, 83 L.Ed. 1092; United States v. Rock Royal Co-operative, Inc., 1939, 307 U.S. 533, 59 S.Ct. 993, 83 L.Ed. 1446; United States v. Darby, 1941, 312 U.S. 100, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L.R. 1430; United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 1942, 315 U.S. 110, 62 S.Ct. 523, 86 L.Ed. 726.

The authority of Congress over goods which have moved in interstate has operated to prevent numerous acts to those goods: e. g., the imposition of discriminatory taxes, Sonneborn v. Cureton, 1923, 262 U.S. 506, 43 S.Ct. 643, 67 L.Ed. 1095; the requirement of label removal, McDermott v. Wisconsin, 1913, 228 U.S. 115, 33 S.Ct. 431, 57 L.Ed. 754, 47 L.R.A.,N.S., 984, Ann.Cas. 1915A, 39; the receiving etc. of stolen motor vehicles, Brooks v. United States, 1925, 267 U.S. 432, 45 S.Ct. 345, 69 L.Ed. *196 699, 37 A.L.R. 1407; the placing of restrictions on an importer in selling an article in convenient containers, Baldwin v. Seelig, Inc., 1935, 294 U.S. 511, 55 S.Ct. 497, 79 L.Ed. 1032, 101 A.L.R. 55.

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Related

United States v. Sullivan
332 U.S. 689 (Supreme Court, 1947)

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Bluebook (online)
67 F. Supp. 192, 1946 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2315, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-sullivan-gamd-1946.