STATE оf Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Richard KNUTSON, INC., Defendant-Appellant.†
No. 93-1898-CR
Court of Appeals
Submitted on briefs April 18, 1995.—Decided July 26, 1995.
196 Wis. 2d 86; 537 N.W.2d 420
†Petition to review denied.
On behalf of the plaintiff-respondent the cause was submitted on the brief of James E. Doyle, attorney general, and Daniel J. O‘Brien, assistant attorney general.
Before Anderson, P.J., Brown and Nettesheim, JJ.
ANDERSON, P.J. Principles of elementary comparative justice, Wisconsin‘s tradition of holding corporations criminally liable and persuasive public policy considerations support our conclusion that corporations may be prosecuted for homicide by negligent use of a vehicle. We affirm the conviction of Richard Knutson, Inc. (RKI) holding that it is within the class of perpetrators covered by the statute and that there was sufficient evidence presented at trial to support the jury‘s verdict.
FACTS
In the spring of 1991, RKI undertook the construction of a sanitary sewer line for the City of Oconomowoc. On May 20, 1991, while working in an area adjacent to some Wisconsin Electric Power Company power lines, a work crew attempted to place a section of corrugated metal pipe in a trench in order to remove groundwater. The backhoe operator misjudged the distance from the boom of the backhoe to the overhead power lines and did not realize he had moved the stick of the boom into contact with the wires. In attempting to attach a chain to the backhoe‘s bucket, a member of the crew was instantly electrocuted.
The State subsequently charged RKI with negligent vehicular homicide under
We initially certified this case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court pursuant to
In a per curiam opinion, the supreme court announced that it was equally divided on whether to affirm or reverse the judgment of conviction. State v. Richard Knutson, Inc., 191 Wis. 2d 395, 396, 528 N.W.2d 430, 431 (1995) (per curiam). The supreme court concluded that in the interest of justice it would vacate its decision to accept the appeal on certification and return the case to this court for our consideration. Id.
CONSTRUCTION OF HOMICIDE STATUTE
RKI raises the same challenges to
On aрpeal, RKI insists that a corporation cannot be held accountable for homicide. RKI argues that “[t]he statute uses the word ‘whoever’ and the correlative phrase ‘another human being.’ In the context of this sentence, ‘whoever’ necessarily refers to a human being. By its own terms, the statute therefore limits culpability for homicide by operation of a vehicle to natural persons.” RKI contends that
The State contends that the statute is unambiguous and includes corporations within a broad class of perpetrators. Relying on Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Kenosha Educ. Ass‘n, 70 Wis. 2d 325, 332, 234 N.W.2d 311, 314 (1975), the State argues that when used in the homicide statutes, the word “whoever” refers to natural or corporate persons. The State reasons that either can be liable for taking the life of “another human being.”
This issue requires us to construe
A statute is ambiguous when it is capable of being interpreted in two or more ways by reasonably well-informed persons. Id. at 795, 460 N.W.2d at 833. An ambiguity does not exist merely because the parties disagree on a statute‘s meaning. Holy Family Catholic Congregation v. Stubenrauch Assocs., Inc., 136 Wis. 2d 515, 521, 402 N.W.2d 382, 385 (Ct. App. 1987). We must examine the language of the statute to decide if the parties’ different views are warranted. Id.
We will thus employ extrinsic aids to uncover the legislature‘s intent. RKI reminds us of the rule of lenity; under this rule we are required to construe all penal statutes strictly in favor of the defendant. See State v. Olson, 106 Wis. 2d 572, 585, 317 N.W.2d 448, 454 (1982). However, it is also a canon of statutory construction that “[c]onstruction of ambiguоus legislation is made in light of the evil sought to be remedied.” State v. Timm, 163 Wis. 2d 894, 899, 472 N.W.2d 593, 595 (Ct. App. 1991).
Where a penalty is involved it has been said that while such statute must be construed with such strictness as carefully to safeguard the rights of the defendant and at the same time preserve the obvious intention of the legislature, the rule of strict construction is not violated by taking the common-sense view of the statute as a whole and giving
Zarnott v. Timken-Detroit Axle Co., 244 Wis. 596, 600, 13 N.W.2d 53, 54 (1944).
The rule of lenity does not require us to give
Professor James Willard Hurst provides guidance. First, he suggests that the very nature of today‘s society makes it impossible for the members of the legislature to forecast “the particular condition or set of facts to which someone now suggests applying the statute.” JAMES W. HURST, DEALING WITH STATUTES 35 (1982). According to Hurst, the legislators may well have supplied “sufficient specifications to provide a discernible frame of reference within which the situation now presented quite clearly fits, even though it represents in some degree a new condition of affairs unknown to the lawmakers.” Id.
Finally, Hurst instructs those interpreting statutes that:
the content of public policy may grow by accretion of statutory precedents in a fashion analogous to the growth of common law. Statutes dealing with a variety of subjects may begin to cluster around some common value judgment. Recognizing this reality, a court is warranted in finding evidence of legislative intent under a given act by reference to what legislators have done regarding like subjects under other acts.
Id. at 45.
The homicide statute in question deals exclusively with deaths caused by negligent operation of vehicles.4 Our task is to ascertain if the legislative intent is to include corporations within the class of perpetrators. This task is made more difficult by the legislature‘s usе of the term “whoever” to identify the perpetrator of a
Another mystery is the deletion of any statutory language establishing corporate liability for criminal acts. The proposed 1953 version of the criminal code contained a specific provision that held a corporation criminally liable for the acts of its agents when acting within the scope of their authority. See Laws of 1953, ch. 623, § 2 (propоsing
Prior to adoption of Wisconsin‘s 1955 criminal code, a corporation could be held criminally liable. See Vulcan Last, 194 Wis. at 641-45, 217 N.W. at 414-16. Vulcan Last was an appeal from a criminal conviction of a corporation for discharging an employee who voted against the corporation‘s request for a municipal water treatment plant. Id. at 637-38, 217 N.W. at 413. The supreme court concluded that Wisconsin would follow
RKI‘s attempt fails because five years later the supreme court explained that “it is now well established that a corporation can be held guilty of crime when it is punishable by a fine....” State ex rel. Kropf v. Gilbert, 213 Wis. 196, 212, 251 N.W. 478, 484 (1933). Kropf was a habeas corpus case in which the petitioners-appellants were challenging the sufficiency of the evidence at a preliminary hearing to support their being bound over for prosecution for embezzlement. Id. at 199-201, 251 N.W. at 479. The question was whether any of the petitioners-appellants, as agents of a corporation, were parties to the crime of the corporation converting or embezzling funds. Id. at 200, 251 N.W. at 479. The answer turned not on the description and definition of a perpetrator of embezzlement; rather, it turned on whether the perpetrаtor would be punished by imprisonment or a fine. See id. at 212, 251 N.W. at 483-84.
We conclude that prior to the enactment of the 1955 criminal code, the well-established rule in Wisconsin was that if a crime was punishable, in part, by a fine, a corporation could be criminally responsible.5 We are satisfied that it was not the description of the perpetrator as a “person“—defined to include
We find it significant that in 1955 the legislature did not seek to highlight corporate criminal liability by including a provision as suggested in the 1953 proposed criminal code or by revoking the then-existing rule found in Vulcan Last and Kropf. The legislature‘s silence is indicative of its satisfaction with the supreme court‘s interpretation of the law. As the supreme court has written:
When determining legislative intent, this court must assume that the legislature knew the law in effect at the time of its actions. Moreover, we presume that the legislature is aware that absent some kind of response this court‘s interpretation of the statute remains in effect. Legislative silence with regard to new court-made decisions indicates legislative acquiescence in those decisions. [Citations omitted.]
State v. Olson, 175 Wis. 2d 628, 641, 498 N.W.2d 661, 666 (1993).
The legislature had another opportunity to consider the reach of the homicide statutes in 1987 when it substantially modified
[A] corporation acts of necessity through its agents whose acts within the scope of the agent‘s authority are the acts of the corporation, both for the imposition of civil and criminal liability. Vulcan Last Co. v. State (1928), 194 Wis. 636, 217 N.W. 412.
This legislative inaction, in the face of repeated supreme court pronouncements that corporations can be held liable for criminal acts, convinces us that the legislature concurs in the supreme court‘s decisions. On two separate occasions the legislature significantly revised the homicide statutes; both times it is presumed that the legislature was aware that court
Our conclusion conforms to the modern trend of the law. A leading treatise on corporations acknowledges that a corporation may be held to answer for its criminal acts, including homicide. See 10 WILLIAM M. FLETCHER, FLETCHER CYCLOPEDIA OF THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS § 4942, at 679, § 4955, at 758 (perm. ed. rev. vol. 1993). In a discussion on enterprise liability, Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr. begin with the premise that “it is almost universally conceded that a corporation may be criminally liable for actions or omissions of its agents in its behalf.” WAYNE R. LAFAVE & AUSTIN W. SCOTT, JR., SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW § 3.10(a), at 361 (1986). The Model Penal Code also has several provisions holding corporations accountable for criminal behavior.7
An additional consideration is the “indirect economic benefits that may accrue to the corporation through crimes against the person. To get these economic benefits, corporate management may shortcut exрensive safety precautions, respond forcibly to strikes, or engage in criminal anticompetitive behavior.” Granite Constr. Co. v. Superior Court, 149 Cal. App. 3d 465, 470, 197 Cal. Rptr. 3, 5 (Cal. Ct. App. 1983). It has also been suggested that the free market system cannot be depended upon to guide corporate decisions in socially acceptable ways, and the threat of imposition of criminal liability is needed to deter inappropriate (criminal) corporate behavior. See John Pray, State v. Serebin: Causation and the Criminal Liability of Nursing Home Administrators, 1986 WIS. L. REV. 339, 358-59.
RKI insists that Wisconsin has disregarded the modern trend of criminal law to hold corporations lia-
[T]he only fair reading of [the statute] provides that natural persons alone can be prosecuted for violations of the statute: only “[w]hoever causes the death of another human being” can be found guilty Because the statute subjects only human beings to criminal liability for negligent vehicular homicide, RKI does not fall within the scope of [the statute].
RKI‘s argument ignores reality. A corporation acts of necessity through its agents, see Dried Milk Prods., 16 Wis. 2d at 361, 114 N.W.2d at 415; therefore, the only way a corporation can negligently cause the death of a human is by the act of its agent—another human,8 see LAFAVE & SCOTT, supra, § 3.10(a), at 363. Reading the statute to limit its coverage to perpetrators who are human, as suggested by RKI, skirts around the concepts of vicarious and enterprise liability. If a human was operating a vehicle within the scope of his or her
employment when the death occurred, RKI‘s construction would permit the corporation to escape criminal prosecution simply because it is not a human being.RKI‘s attempt to limit the class of perpetrators to natural persons ignores several axioms. First, elementary comparative justice demands that the same criminal liability must be imposed when two relatively similar offenses are committed under similar circumstances. See Steven Walt and William S. Laufer, Why Personhood Doesn‘t Matter: Corporate Criminal Liability and Sanctions, 18 AM. J. CRIM. L. 263, 278 (1991).9 Second, “it is not in virtue of being a person that criminal liability attaches. It is in virtue of possessing the complex relational property of causing harm—voluntarily—with a wrongful state of mind—without excuse.” Id. at 275. Third, “[f]inding moral responsibility and criminal liability does not depend on first determining whether an entity is a person.” Id. at 276. We agree with Walt and Laufer that:
Determining the ontological status of the corporation is unnecessary. For the assignment of corporate criminal liability does not require that determination. Corporations can be held criminally liable without deciding whether they are persons. Indeed, their status as moral persons can be left oрen. Agnosticism on both counts is justified for the same reason: criminal responsibility, whether of
individuals or corporations, does not take personhood into account. To be sure, judicial practice requires a finding of personhood . . . . But this is a legislatively imposed requirement. Criminal liability can survive without an inquiry into personhood. Decisional law implicitly recognizes as much by considering personhood a minor barrier to the assignment of liability.
Id. at 273-74 (footnote omitted).
Part of RKI‘s argument is premised upon a narrow definition of “whoever” that excludes corporations. The supreme court‘s decision in Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist., 70 Wis. 2d at 332, 234 N.W.2d at 314, that when the word “whoever” is used in the statute it refers to both natural and corporate persons, appears to be the universal construction of that term. We agree with both FLETCHER, supra, § 4948, at 702-03, and LAFAVE & SCOTT, supra, § 3.10(a), at 363-64, that if a penal statute is intended to inhibit an act, a corporation is included within the class of pеrpetrators if to do so is within the spirit and purpose of the act.10
SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE
RKI argues that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to support its conviction. RKI asserts that the State failed to prove two elements of the offense: (1) that RKI was criminally negligent, in other words, that RKI should have realized that the conduct created a substantial and unreasonable risk of death or great bodily harm to another; and (2) the causal connection between RKI‘s alleged criminally negligent conduct and the victim‘s death.
The test for sufficiency of the evidence is whether an appellate court can conclude that a reasonable trier of fact could be convinced of a defendant‘s guilt beyond
Homicide by negligent use of a vehicle has three elements: “(1) that the defendant cause death (2) by criminal negligence (3) in the operation of a vehicle.”11 Walter Dickey et al., The Importance of Clarity in the Law of Homicide: The Wisconsin Revision, 1989 WIS. L. REV. 1323, 1373. The core factor of the three elements is that simple negligence is not enough to hold an individual criminally liable. Id. at 1376. In order for a person to face criminal consequences for a nеgligent act, his or her negligence must rise to the level of criminal negligence.12
Id. at 1376-77.
We are satisfied that the evidence and reasonable inferences flowing from the evidence support the jury‘s conclusion that RKI‘s conduct created a substantial and unreasonable risk оf death or great bodily harm to its employees. See WIS JI—CRIMINAL 1170. RKI‘s job performance violated general and specific safety requirements. Although RKI did not violate Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) regulations governing working in the vicinity of electrical power lines, it did violate written safety guidelines applying to this job. In addition, RKI‘s contract for this specific job required it to comply with certain safety guidelines while on property owned by Wisconsin Electric Power Company.
The evidence permits the reasonable inference that RKI neglected to act with due diligence to insure the safety of its employees as they installed sewer pipes in the vicinity of overhead electrical lines. RKI‘s management took no action to have the power lines de-energized or barriers erected; rather, management elected to merely warn еmployees about the overhead lines. A finder of fact would be justified in reasonably inferring that RKI had ample notice that the existence of overhead power lines would interfere with the job, and unless there was compliance with safety regulations, working in the vicinity of the overhead lines posed a substantial risk to its employees.
The evidence supports the conclusion that if RKI had enforced the written safety regulations of OSHA, had abided by its own written safety program and had complied with the contract requirements for construction on Wisconsin Electric‘s property, the electrocution death would likely not have happened. The finder of fact was justified in concluding that RKI operated vehicles in close proximity to the overhead power lines without recognizing the potential hazard to its employees in the vicinity of the vehicles. Thе jury could reasonably find that RKI‘s failure to take elementary precautions for the safety of its employees was a substantial cause of the electrocution death.
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
BROWN, J. (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority decision. I have no quarrel with the general policy considerations favoring corporate criminal liability. And it is indisputable that past Wisconsin cases have made corporations criminally liable for the acts of their agents. But I am convinced that those past cases were based upon statutes with substantially different wording than the statute in this case.
The supreme court noted that the statute prohibited any “person” from attempting to influence a voter in the manner prescribed. Id. at 643, 217 N.W. at 415. The court then ruled that the word “person” in a penal statute means “person in law.” Id. at 644, 217 N.W. at 415. The court reasoned that a “person in law” included artificial as well as natural persons. Id. The court also cited a federal case for the proposition that “when a statute in general terms prohibits the doing of an act which can be performed by a corporation, and does not expressly exempt corporations from its provisions, there is no reason why the statute should be construed
Vulcan Last therefore stands for the proposition that when a statute refers to a “person” or “persons” as the perpetrator, then artificial persons are subject to criminal liability. See id. It also establishes that corporations should be held criminally responsiblе under a statute employing the words “person” or “persons” unless specifically exempted. See id.
Another example, cited by the State, is Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Kenosha Educ. Ass‘n, 70 Wis. 2d 325, 234 N.W.2d 311 (1975). There, the court was concerned with a statute using the word “whoever.” Id. at 332, 234 N.W.2d at 314. The court stated:
It appears to be the rule that when the word “whoever” is employed in a statute, it is considered to refer only to “persons,” whether natural or corporate, and not to unincorporated associations. [Emphasis added.]
Id. Thus, by extension, the Vulcan Last rule can be said to mean that where a statute uses either the words “person,” “persons,” or “whoever,” then artificial persons as well as natural persons are subject to criminal liability. See id.; Vulcan Last, 194 Wis. at 644, 217 N.W. at 415.
I am satisfied, however, that the instant statute falls outside the Vulcan Last rationale. Here, the statute specifically applies to “whoever” causes the death of “another human being” by negligent operation or handling of a vehicle. See
I am influenced by the holding in People v. Rochester Ry. & Light Co., 88 N.E. 22 (N.Y. 1909), cited by Knutson. The court there held that a corporation could not be indicted for homicide where the penal code defined homicide as the “killing of one human being by the act, procurement or omission of another.” Id. at 24. The court wrote:
We think that this final word “another” naturally and clearly means a second or additional member of the same kind or class alone referred to by the preceding words, namely, another human being, and that we should not interрret it as appellant asks us to, as meaning another “person,” which might then include corporations . . . . It is true that the term “person” used therein may at times include corporations, but that is not the case here.
Id. I acknowledge that this New York case is old, but so is the English language. What was basic syntactic analysis in 1909 would be unchanged in 1995.
Other cases and comments cited by Knutson support my acceptance of the New York court‘s rationale. In Granite Constr. Co. v. Superior Court, 197 Cal. Rptr. 3, 4 (Cal. Ct. App. 1983), a corporation appealed a manslaughter conviction based upon a statute explicitly defining “person” to include corporations as well as natural persons. The court stated:
This statute does not rule out the prosecution of corporations. . . . [I]t does not limit itself to natural
persons by defining the act of manslaughter as the killing “of a human being . . . by another.”
Id. at 5. Our statute employs the language not found in the California statute. I think this case is instructive because it explains when a statute does or does not include corporations.
An American Law Reports annotation also supports the New York court‘s reasoning. According to the annotation:
In jurisdictions where homicide is defined as the killing of a human being by another human being, the definition itself seems to preclude corporate liability for the crime. However, the courts have a more difficult job of analyzing the law in jurisdictions where “person” is used in place of “human being” in the definition of homicide since “person” may include or exclude corporations.
Nora A. Uehlein, Annotation, Corporation‘s Criminal Liability for Homicide, 45 A.L.R. 4th, 1021, 1024 (1986) (footnotes omitted). The annotation goes on to cite the reasoning in the New York case as support for commentary. See id. at 1029. I find all of these authorities persuasive and would adopt them in ruling for Knutson.
The majority opinion dismisses the grammatical distinctions bеtween the statute involved in this case and the statutes in cases like Vulcan Last by concluding that it is “not the description of the perpetrator as a ‘person‘” which governs corporate liability. Majority op. at 100. Rather, it is the public policy of this state to expose corporations to criminal liability whenever a crime is punishable by fine. See id. As I read the majority opinion, what it is saying is that whenever the legislature imposes a fine as one of the alternative
The majority gets this idea from its reading of State ex rel. Kropf v. Gilbert, 213 Wis. 196, 212, 251 N.W. 478, 484 (1933). The majority cites Kropf to say that “it is now well established that a corporation can be held guilty of crime when it is punishable by a fine.” See id.; majority op. at 100. But that is not what the case said. What the case really said was:
Although it is now well established that a corporation can be held guilty of crime when it is punishable by a fine [citing foreign jurisdictions omitted here], it has been repeatedly held that when the only punishment prescribed for an offense is imprisonment, which cannot in the nature of things be inflicted upon it, no information or indictment will lie against it because the law does not permit or require that which is futile.
Id. at 212-13, 251 N.W. at 484 (citations omitted). What the Kropf court was saying is that while other jurisdictions have generally held that a corporation can be held guilty of a crime when it is punishable by a fine, Wisconsin‘s courts will not hold a corporation guilty if the punishment is imprisonment. This holding is a far cry from ruling that, in Wisconsin, corporations will be held liable if a crime is punishable by a fine. The most that can be said about the Kropf holding is that when a fine is a form of punishment, it is not a futile exercise for the legislature to expose corporations to criminal liability. In my view, Kropf does not resolve the issue in this case; it only begs the question, which is: Did the
Compounding its error, the majority then reasons that since the supreme court has repeatedly held that corporations can be held liable for criminal acts, and since the legislature‘s criminal code revisions remained silent about corporate criminal liability, therefore the legislature has acquiesced in the supreme court‘s sweeping pronouncements. See majority op. at 101-02. But as I have already pointed out, the supreme court has not made the sweeping pronouncement claimed by the majority. The supreme court‘s judgments regarding corporate liability are no more and no less than what it initially announced in Vulcan Last. As I have pointed out, the statute in this case differs substantially from the one in Vulcan Last and the reasoning of Vulcan Last cannot be applied here.1
The majority admits that my use of the canons of statutory construction is “proper,” but complains that I have neglected to consider our prerogative to “disregard grammatical errors or mistakes in statutes in order to give effect to the intent of the legislature.” Majority op. at 107 n.10. I am unaware, however, of any information which would lead me to believe that the language of the instant statute is a “grammatical error[] or mistake[].” See id. The statutes were substantially modified from the original 1955 laws in 1987 after extended study by the Judicial Council. The Judicial Council is well known for its scholarship and careful attention to detail. I refuse to believe that the language of the present statute is the result of inadvertence or ignorance of the legislative purpose.
What this debate really comes down to is whether it is desirable that a court avoid the literal meaning of this statute. I acknowledge that there exists a tension between the language of the statute and the announced public policy goal by some of our citizenry that corporations be held to criminal liability for negligent deaths. And I reject the notion that we should never search for the “real” rule lying behind the mere words on a printed page. But when the statute‘s wording is so clear in its contextual rigidity, the statute has therefore generated an answer which excludes otherwise
Notes
The State argues that the language reflects the legislature‘s intent to distinguish homicide from suicide. Thus, a person who negligently kills himself or herself cannot be convicted under the statute. The State seemingly posits that this is because the statute should be read to restrict homicide to the killing of “any person except the actor.” I acknowledge that in old Europe, a person could be “condemn[ed] . . . to death for the crime of having [committed suicide.]” A. ALVAREZ, THE SAVAGE GOD: A STUDY OF SUICIDE, 46 (1972). In France, for example, the corpse was hanged by the feet, dragged through the streets, burned and thrown on a public garbage heap. Id. The French came to their senses in 1791 when the new penal code did nоt mention suicide. Id. at 48. The State‘s argument appears to be that the legislature thought it necessary to exempt suicides from the criminal statutes. I give the Wisconsin legislature more credit. I think the State‘s argument is rather remarkable in its attempt to visit this legal idiocy on our legislature. The State cites a draft of the 1950 Legislative Council that spoke to suicide and abortion. But that draft never even got as far as the[This] formula serves the proper separation of powers principle so far as it provides a persistent reminder to those who must apply statutes that the legislature is entitled to set the frame of public policy, and that the text it votes into the statute books is its most positive and deliberate exercise of that function.
940.10 Homicide by negligent operation of vehicle. Whoever causes the death of another human being by the negligent operation or handling of a vehicle is guilty of a Class E felony. [Emphasis added.]
§ 2.07. Liability of Corporations, Unincorporated Associations and Persons Acting, or Under a Duty to Act, in Their Behalf.
(1) A corporation may be convicted of the commission of an offense if:
(a) the offense is a violation or the offense is defined by a statute other than the Code in which a legislative purpose to impose liability on corporations plainly appears and the conduct is performed by an agent of the corporation acting in behalf of the corporation within the scope of his office or employment, except that if the law defining the offense designates the agents for whose conduct the corporation is accountable or the circumstances under which it is accountable, such provisions shall apply; or
(b) the offense consists of an omission to discharge a specific duty of affirmative performance imposed on corporations by law; or
(c) the commission of the offense was authorized, requested, commanded, performed or recklessly tolerated by the board of
CORPORATE LIABILITY: ACTS OF LESSER EMPLOYEES: OTHER THAN STRICT LIABILITY CASES
(The defendant) (One of the defendants) in this case is a Wisconsin corporation.
Under Wisconsin law, a corporation may be held criminally liable for the acts of an agent or employee when such agent or employee acts within the scope of his employment in behalf of the corpоration and the corporate officer or management executive having supervisory responsibility over the subject matter of the offense failed to use due diligence to prevent the commission of the offense.
WIS JI—CRIMINAL 430.
Dittner v. Town of Spencer, 55 Wis. 2d 707, 711, 201 N.W.2d 45, 47 (1972). We are satisfied that the history of corporate criminal liability in Wisconsin prescribes the results rеached. The construction ofdependent upon the reasonableness of the interpretation in terms of the subject matter of the statute and whether the interpretation dictated by these ossified rules of construction reaches a workable result. An interpretation reached by relying upon a rule of grammatical construction cannot stand in the face of a conflict revealed in the subject matter under consideration.