UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
UNITED STATES V. UNION SUPPLY CO., 215 U. S. 50 (1909)
215 U. S. 50U.S. Supreme Court
United States v. Union Supply Co., 215 U.S. 50 (1909)
United States v. Union Supply Company
No. 120
Argued October 13, 14, 1909
Decided November 8, 1909
215 U.S. 50
Syllabus
Where corporations are as much within the mischief aimed at by a penal statute and as capable of willful breaches of the law as individuals, the statute will not, if it can be reasonably interpreted as including corporations, be interpreted as excluding them.
Where a penal statute prescribes two independent penalties, it will be construed as meaning to inflict them so far as possible, and, if one is clubjuris
impossible, the guilty defendant is not to escape the other which is possible.
Section 6 of the Act of May 9, 1902, c. 784, 32 Stat. 193, imposing certain duties on wholesale dealers in oleomargarine and imposing penalties of fine and imprisonment for violations applies to corporations, notwithstanding the penalty of imprisonment cannot be inflicted on a corporation.
The facts are stated in the opinion. clubjuris