State v. Guminga
Minnesota Supreme Court
395 N.W.2d 344 (1986)
Undercover investigators brought a 17-year-old woman into a restaurant where a waitress served her alcohol without checking identification; the waitress was arrested for serving alcohol to a minor. The restaurant's owner, George Guminga (defendant), was then charged under a state statute imposing vicarious criminal liability on employers for an employee's unlawful sale of alcohol to a minor, even though Guminga neither knew of nor ratified the waitress's conduct. Guminga's motion to dismiss was denied, and the trial court certified the constitutional question to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Whether it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and analogous state constitutional provisions, to convict an individual of a crime punishable by imprisonment for an act he did not commit, know of, or consent to.