State v. Richard Knutson, Inc.

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.

*112For example, the most often cited illustration favoring corporate criminal liability is Vulcan Last Co. v. State, 194 Wis. 636, 217 N.W. 412 (1928). The corporation desired to have the City of…