Facts
- Cardiff was president of a corporation operating an apple-processing plant in Yakima, Washington, shipping products in interstate commerce.
- FDA agents sought to enter and inspect the plant under § 704 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which authorizes inspection only after requesting and obtaining permission from the owner, operator, or custodian.
- Cardiff refused the agents’ initial request for permission to enter and inspect.
- The United States charged Cardiff by information with violating § 301(f), which criminalizes “[t]he refusal to permit entry or inspection as authorized by section 704.”
- The district court convicted Cardiff and imposed a fine; the Ninth Circuit reversed, reading §§ 301(f) and 704 to penalize refusal only where permission had previously been granted.
Issues
- Whether §§ 301(f) and 704 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act make it a crime to refuse, in the first instance, to grant FDA inspectors permission to enter and inspect a factory.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit in an 8–1 decision.
- The Court held that the statute, as written, does not criminalize an initial refusal to grant permission for entry and inspection.
- Cardiff’s conviction under § 301(f) was therefore improper.
Legal Principles
- When a penal provision incorporates an administrative inspection authorization “as authorized,” the scope of criminal liability is limited by the explicit conditions in the inspection statute.
- Where the inspection statute conditions entry on “request and obtaining permission,” courts will not infer a criminal duty to consent absent clear statutory language.
- Ambiguity in a criminal statute is construed narrowly to ensure fair notice and to avoid judicial expansion of criminal liability.
Conclusion
The Court concluded that because § 704 conditions inspection on obtaining permission, § 301(f) could not be read to criminalize a first refusal to consent to inspection; any broader compulsory-inspection scheme and corresponding criminal sanction must come from Congress, not judicial construction.