Also known as: on pain of · pain of · under pain of · under penalty of
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A phrase denoting that a specified penalty or sanction will follow upon failure to perform a required act or satisfy a stated condition.
Yasmine testified at trial that the press safety guard had always functioned properly. Preston Pratt introduced her earlier deposition in which she admitted under oath that the guard had been removed. The court received the deposition as substantive evidence because the statement contradicted her testimony and had been made on pain of perjury during a formal proceeding.
Paige Porter submitted a laboratory report stating that genetic testing established her as the child's mother. The report appeared in a signed record from the testing facility. The court treated the document as self-authenticating because it had been executed on pain of perjury by a laboratory designee.
Patricia Patel operated a ferry service across a state line and challenged a state license requirement. The Court held that the federal government possesses exclusive power to regulate interstate navigation. State interference was therefore invalid on pain of violating the constitutional allocation of authority.
In 1798 the New York Legislature granted Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right for twenty years to navigate the waters within the jurisdiction of the state with boats moved by fire or steam, a privilege later renewed and extended in 1803 and 1807. The right was assigned first to John R. Livingston and then to Aaron Ogden, who thereby claimed authority to operate steamboats between Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and New York City. Thomas Gibbons, meanwhile, took possession of two steamboats, the Stoudinger and the Bellona, which he employed in the same waters while holding a license issued under the federal Act of February 18, 1793, for enrolling and licensing vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries. Gibbons filed a bill in the Court of Chancery of New York against Ogden seeking an injunction to restrain Ogden from navigating those waters with steamboats. The bill recited the state grants and the assignment to Ogden, alleged that Ogden was violating the exclusive privilege, and prayed for injunctive relief. Gibbons answered that his vessels were duly enrolled and licensed under the 1793 federal statute and insisted on his right to navigate between Elizabethtown and New York notwithstanding the state legislation. The Chancellor awarded the injunction and, after hearing, perpetuated it on the ground that the New York acts were valid. The Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors, the highest court of the state to which the cause could be carried, affirmed the decree. Gibbons then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
View casePavel Petrov represented absent class members in a securities suit against an out-of-state corporation. The Court required that absent plaintiffs receive notice and an opportunity to opt out. Without those protections, a judgment would bind them on pain of violating due process.
Phillips Petroleum Company, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Oklahoma, produced or purchased natural gas from leased land in 11 states during the 1970s. It sold most of the gas in interstate commerce at prices regulated by the Federal Power Commission, later the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Beginning in the mid-1970s Phillips proposed price increases. It collected higher amounts subject to refund with interest if disapproved. Phillips suspended royalty payments to lessors until final Commission approval. It paid the suspended royalties of $3.7 million in 1976, $4.7 million in 1977, and $2.9 million in 1978 without interest after the increases were approved. In 1979 the Commission began investigating overcharges. In 1983 it issued an opinion ordering refunds. Royalty owners Irl Shutts, a Kansas resident, and Robert and Betty Anderson, Oklahoma residents owning leases in Oklahoma and Texas, filed suit in Kansas state court seeking interest on the suspended royalties. They sought to represent a class of 33,000 royalty owners later reduced to 28,100 members after 3,400 opted out and 1,500 could not be notified. Fewer than 1,000 class members resided in Kansas and only about one-quarter of one percent of the leases were located there. The Kansas trial court certified the class under a state statute modeled on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 on an opt-out basis. It sent first-class mail notice describing the action and the right to opt out. The court applied Kansas law to award interest at Commission rates followed by the Kansas post-judgment rate of 15 percent. After the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1984.
View casePaula Pierce, a hotel employee, sued for wages below the state minimum. The Court sustained the statute against a due process challenge. Employers who paid subminimum wages acted on pain of liability for the statutory difference plus penalties.
In 1913 the State of Washington enacted a statute entitled An Act to establish a minimum wage for women and minors. The law created an Industrial Welfare Commission. A later statute transferred its duties to an Industrial Welfare Committee consisting of the Director of Labor and Industries, the Supervisor of Industrial Insurance, the Supervisor of Industrial Relations, the Industrial Statistician and the Supervisor of Women in Industry. The statute required the commission to investigate wages and conditions of labor for women and minors. It required public hearings. When wages were found inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living and maintain workers in health, the commission was to convene conferences of employers, employees and public representatives before issuing obligatory orders fixing minimum wages. Special licenses were authorized for physically defective or apprentice workers at lower rates. The statute had remained in force for more than twenty-three years by the time of the present litigation. Elsie Parrish was employed by the West Coast Hotel Company as a chambermaid. She and her husband brought suit against the company to recover the difference between the wages actually paid and the minimum wage. The minimum wage was $14.50 per week of 48 hours fixed by the Industrial Welfare Committee pursuant to the statute. The company had paid her less than the prescribed minimum during her employment. The Supreme Court of Washington reversed the trial court judgment, sustained the statute, and directed entry of judgment for the plaintiffs. The West Coast Hotel Company appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The appeal brought before the Court the question of the constitutional validity of the Washington minimum wage statute. The Washington law was substantially identical to minimum wage statutes enacted in Oregon in the same year. Similar laws had been adopted in the District of Columbia in 1918 and in other states during the same period.
View casePablo Perez challenged an EPA air-quality standard as an unlawful delegation of legislative power. The Court held that the statute supplied an intelligible principle. Agency action exceeding that principle would be invalid on pain of violating separation of powers.
In July 1997 the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency revised the national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone. American Trucking Associations, Inc., and its co-respondents, including the States of Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, challenged the new standards in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1). The District of Columbia Circuit held that Section 109(b)(1) delegated legislative power to the Administrator in contravention of the Constitution because it provided no intelligible principle to guide the agency's exercise of authority. The court remanded the NAAQS to the agency for reconsideration. On rehearing the panel adhered to its position on the delegation point and on the implementation question, and it rejected the EPA's argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to reach the implementation question. The Administrator and the EPA petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the delegation, jurisdiction, and implementation questions. The respondents conditionally cross-petitioned for review of the costs question. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on both petitions in 2000 and consolidated the cases for decision. At the same time the EPA proposed the revised ozone NAAQS in 1996, it also proposed an interim implementation policy. After accepting comments, the White House published a memorandum prescribing implementation procedures, and the EPA announced in the preamble to its final ozone NAAQS that the provisions of subpart 1 of part D would apply to the implementation of the new standards.
View caseThe phrase signals that noncompliance with a stated condition will trigger a specific penalty or loss of right. Courts treat the warning as creating a binding obligation enforceable through the threatened consequence.
Yes. A deposition or other proceeding taken under penalty of perjury meets the formal requirement of Rule 801(d)(1)(A) when the statement is inconsistent with trial testimony and the declarant is subject to cross-examination.
Supporting sources
A report is self-authenticating when it is in a record and signed under penalty of perjury by a laboratory designee. The signature supplies the necessary assurance of reliability without further testimony.
…153-154.) A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertionsand to do so on pain of libel judgments virtually unlimited in amount leads to a comparable "self-censorship." Allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, does not mean that…