Warning
Info
- - tl;dr
- - ICRA
- - Facts & Holding
- - DeepDive
0 0
Supreme Court of the United States - 320 U.S. 277
DeepDiveHighlight a legal term to see the definition
The case involves the prosecution of Buffalo Pharmacal Company and its president, Dotterweich, for violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by shipping misbranded and adulterated drugs in interstate commerce. Dotterweich's claim that he should have been given an opportunity to present his views before prosecution was rejected by the Supreme Court. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Dotterweich's conviction, but the Supreme Court found that the Act imposes penalties on any person, including corporations, who violates § 301(a), and the individuals who act on behalf of the corporation are responsible for its actions. The Court emphasized that the larger purpose of the legislation must be considered in interpreting it, and the Act was designed to enlarge and stiffen the penal net, not to narrow and loosen it. Therefore, the penalties of the law could be imposed on both the corporation and its agents, except in the rare case where the corporation is merely an individual's alter ego. The court below erred in limiting the scope of the penalizing provisions of the Act to the view that only the principal, not the agent, is expected to obtain a guaranty.
The dissenting opinion argues that corporate officers cannot be held criminally liable for violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 without personal knowledge or participation. The absence of explicit statutory provisions warning corporate officers of their potential liability means that they cannot be held criminally liable under the Act. The failure to mention officers specifically suggests that Congress intended to exempt them from liability, and the history of federal food and drug legislation supports this conclusion. Therefore, applying the sanctions of the Act to the respondent would go against the intent of Congress as expressed in the statutory language and legislative history.
LSD+ Case Briefs
Features
- DeepDive for detailed case analysis
- Over 50,000 existing case briefs
- Instant briefs for another 6,000,000 cases
- Highlight dictionary for legal term definitions
- Social learning with chat and high points
Over 50,000 Cases Briefed
LSD+ gives you access to over 50,000 case briefs, more than anyone else. Be the first to email us the website of a case brief product that offers you more case briefs and we'll give you a free year of LSD+.
14-Day Free Trial
Unlimited access. Read as much content as you want during your trial with no device limitations. Cancel any time during your trial and keep access for the full 14 days.
Integrated Legal Dictionary
Lawyers and judges love to use big words. And Latin, for some reason.
Highlight a legal term in LSD Briefs and get an instant, plain English definition. Try highlighting contract or specific performance. No need to search or read through a list of definitions, simply highlight the words you don’t know and our LSDefine integration will instantly give you a definition to any of over 30,000 legal terms.
DeepDive
DeepDive allows you to explore legal cases like never before. DeepDive offers multiple levels of case summaries, which empowers you to quickly and easily find the information you need to stay on top of readings. Easily navigate through summary levels and click on any text to get more detail, all the way down to the original legal case text.
Brief anything. Instantly.
Our proprietary state-of-the-art system can instantly brief over 6,000,000 US cases. That means we can probably brief that case that your professor assigned last night when she sent you a poorly scanned pdf and told you to read every third paragraph. Or maybe she uploaded it to Canvas and didn’t really tell you to read it, but you know you probably should. Tenure does wild things to good people.
Social Learning with Chat and High Points
Study groups are a great way to learn and explore a case. LSD has chat rooms for each case to let you ask questions across the community and hear what other students struggled with and how they put it all together. Learn the key points of every case from other LSD+ users and share your knowledge with LSD High Points.
Real-Time Brief Feedback
Don’t settle for mistakes in briefs that have been there for 10 years and never fixed. Find an issue or something missing from a brief? Down vote and we will make improvements. All of our case brief editors graduated from from T14 law schools.