## Facts

- A Buffalo retail fur company sold coats on an installment/layaway basis, taking a deposit for a specific selected coat and holding it “on storage” until the balance was paid.
- A customer selected a $295 coat, paid a $25 deposit, and left the coat with the store to be held without a fixed completion date.
- When the customer later paid the balance, the store did not deliver the selected coat and offered a different coat; the original had been resold.
- The prosecution contended the resale and substitution were part of a recurring business practice directed by corporate officers: coats placed on deposit were resold and delivered to whichever customer first paid in full.
- The prosecution sought testimony from sales employees to show officer-directed resale of layaway coats and a systematic practice, but the trial court excluded much of this evidence.
- The corporation argued on appeal that it could not commit larceny because it could not form the required criminal intent.

## Issues

1. Whether a corporation can be convicted of grand larceny, including satisfying the intent element through its agents and officers.
2. Whether the trial court’s exclusion of pattern/practice evidence improperly prevented proof that any larcenous intent was the corporation’s intent rather than an employee’s independent wrongdoing.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals held a corporation may be criminally liable for larceny; the view that a corporation cannot commit crimes requiring intent was rejected.
- The judgment of conviction was reversed and a new trial ordered.
- The court concluded the excluded evidence concerning a recurring resale/substitution practice was materially relevant to determining whether the charged conduct reflected corporate policy and corporate intent.

## Legal Principles

- A corporation may be convicted of crimes requiring *mens rea*, including larceny, when the knowledge and intent of authorized officers or agents acting within the scope of their authority are attributable to the corporation.
- Corporate criminal liability requires proof that the wrongful acts and intent are properly treated as corporate acts and corporate intent, not merely unauthorized conduct by individual employees.
- Evidence of a recurring course of conduct or business practice, including management direction or knowing approval, may be used to prove corporate-level intent.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that corporations can commit larceny through the attributable intent of authorized agents and officers, but reversed the conviction because the jury was improperly denied evidence bearing on whether the alleged resale of layaway coats was a corporate policy demonstrating corporate intent.


People v. Canadian Fur Trappers' Corp., 248 N.Y. 159, 161 N.E. 455 (N.Y. 1928)