Opinion

Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, Petitioner v. Brown Brothers Harriman and Company

  • 357 F.2d 741
  • 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 6948
Court
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Filed
Mar 8, 1966
Status
Published
On the bench
Lumbard, Kaufman, Feinberg
Cited by
10 cases
Authority
More cited than 78.7%

The opinion

PER CURIAM:

The question for decision is whether the Secretary of Agriculture has authority to subpoena, under Section 10(h) of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, 7 U.S.C. § 610 (h), witnesses who are not themselves subject to the regulatory provisions of that act. Brown Brothers Harriman and Company, a private banking company, appeals from an order of the District Court for the Southern District of New York enforcing an administrative subpoena duces tecum served on the bank for the records of a customer’s account. The subpoena was issued in the course of an investigation into unlawful rebates allegedly paid by

*742

milk producers to handlers through brokers and sought the production of an account controlled by one

Sol

Zausner, a broker. The Secretary conceded for purposes of this proceeding that neither the bank nor Zausner was subject to the provisions of the act.

We agree with the district court that § 610(h) does authorize the Secretary to subpoena witnesses who are not subject to the provisions of the act and we reject the narrow interpretation of the statute urged by the appellants for the reasons stated in Judge Bryan’s opinion, D.C., 250 F.Supp. 32 (Feb. 3, 1966) and by Judge Lord in Freeman v. Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co., 248 F.Supp. 487, 491-492 (E.D.Pa., 1965).

The order of the district court enforcing the subpoena is affirmed.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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