In 1975 the Supreme Court upheld the criminal conviction of John Park, the chief executive of Acme Markets. Acme was a national food chain with about 36,000 employees and 874 stores. Food in one of its warehouses in Baltimore had been “held in a building accessible to rodents.” Park was fined $50 on each count.
The Court, quoting an earlier decision, said that the food law “dispenses with the conventional requirement for criminal conduct—awareness of some wrongdoing.” It was enough that Park “had a responsible relation to the situation” and the power to prevent or correct it. Lawyers call this the Park doctrine.
In 2016 a federal appeals court upheld three-month prison sentences for Jack and Peter DeCoster, the owner and the chief operating officer of an egg company. In 2010 about 56,000 Americans had fallen ill with salmonella from contaminated eggs. The two had pleaded guilty to misdemeanors under the food law. Their liability rested on the Park doctrine.