Is a fish a Document under Sarbanes-Oxley?
Is a fish a document under Sarbanes-Oxley?
By: Mark Tufts
Yates v. United States, 2015 WL 773330, United States Supreme Court (Feb. 25 2015)A commercial fisherman was charged with violating Sec. 1519 of Sarbanes-0xely for having discarded undersized grouper when told to segregate them by the state investigating authority. Sec. 1519 provides that a person may be fined or imprisoned for up to 20 years if he “knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” a federal investigation. Yates was convicted under this act though asserted that a fish is not a tangible object within the purview of the Act; rather, the clause is ejusdem generis and must be similar to a record or document. The trial court disagreed as did the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.On writs to the U.S. Supreme Court in a split 4-1-4 decision, the majority reversed. An opinion written by Justice Ginsburg joined in by Chief Justice Roberts, Breyer and Sotomayor stated: Applying the canons noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis, “tangible object,” as the last in a list of terms that begins “any record [or] document,” is appropriately read to refer, not to any tangible object, but specifically to the subset of tangible objects used to record or preserve information. Justice Alito concurred in the judgment in a separate opinion. Justice Kagan wrote the dissent joined in by Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas stating: This case raises the question whether the term “tangible object” means the same thing in §1519 as it means in everyday language—any object capable of being touched. The answer should be easy: Yes. The term “tangible object” is broad, but clear.
