## Facts

- Wesley E. Hixon worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority and sustained a knee injury in 1989, receiving federal workers’ compensation benefits administered by the Department of Labor’s OWCP.
- OWCP required Hixon to submit disability-related forms (two Form CA-8 and two Form CA-1032) that asked whether he had any “salaried or self-employment” or otherwise sought employment/earnings information relevant to benefit levels.
- On each of the four forms, Hixon answered in substance that he had no “self-employment,” including using “not applicable” responses.
- During the benefits period, Hixon owned and operated Woods and Water Outdoor Consultants (WWOC), a Georgia corporation formed in 1987.
- Hixon was WWOC’s sole owner and served as president, treasurer, registered agent, and sole director; he did not draw a salary but received commissions connected to the business.
- It was undisputed that, under Georgia law, a corporate officer is legally an employee of the corporation.
- The government indicted Hixon on four counts under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, alleging he made false and material statements by denying “self-employment” and concealing ownership/operation of WWOC.
- A jury convicted Hixon on all counts. The district court denied his motion for judgment of acquittal and instructed the jury it could disregard the corporate form if it found Hixon and WWOC were effectively the same.

## Issues

1. Whether a statement denying “self-employment” is “false” under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 when the defendant performed work through a corporation in which he was an officer and sole owner.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the charged falsity and support the § 1001 convictions, such that denial of the motion for judgment of acquittal was error.
3. Whether the district court improperly permitted the jury to disregard the corporate entity to treat the defendant as “self-employed” for purposes of § 1001.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit reversed the convictions.
- The court held the government failed to prove an essential element—falsity—because Hixon’s “not self-employed” answers were legally true given his status as an employee of a separate corporate entity.
- The court rejected the district court’s approach allowing the jury to disregard the corporation to convert a legally accurate statement into a criminally false one.
- The court ordered dismissal of the indictment rather than a new trial because the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law on the charged theory.

## Legal Principles

- A conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 requires proof that the specific statement charged in the indictment was actually false; a literally true statement cannot satisfy the falsity element even if it was intended to mislead.
- Corporate separateness controls the legal characterization of work relationships: a corporate officer is an employee of the corporation, not “self-employed,” when the corporation is a distinct juridical entity under governing law.
- In a § 1001 prosecution, the government is bound by the indictment’s framing; it may not rely on equitable disregard of the corporate form to broaden a legally defined term and thereby create falsity.
- Jury instructions cannot authorize conviction by redefining the charged term in a nonlegal, lay sense when the indictment’s falsity theory depends on the term’s legal meaning.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit vacated Hixon’s § 1001 convictions because the government charged him with falsely denying “self-employment,” but his relationship to his business was, as a matter of law, employment by a corporation; absent objective falsity of the charged statement, the convictions could not stand and the indictment was dismissed.


United States v. Hixon, 987 F.2d 1261 (6th Cir. 1993)