Palmer v. Van Santvoord

• Decision Date: 05 October 1897
• Citation: 153 N.Y. 612,47 N.E. 915
• Parties: PALMER v. VAN SANTVOORD et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

153 N.Y. 612

47 N.E. 915

PALMER

v.VAN SANTVOORD et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 5, 1897.

Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Third department.

Action by Wilson E. Palmer against Seymour Van Santvoord and others, receivers. From an order of the appellate division (45 N. Y. Supp. 354) affirming an order of the special term directing defendants to pay the same, they appeal. Affirmed.

The respondent was employed by the Walter A. Wood Mowing & Reaping Machine Company, a domestic corporation, prior to the appointment of the appellants as its receivers. The nature of his employment is stated in the case as follows: Wilson E. Palmer ‘was employed by the said Walter A. Wood Company to set up machines and to take them down, and to fix the same when out of repair; to go from place to place and fix and set up the machines of said company for farmers to whom the machines had been sold; to unpack the machines, and to repack them and ship same to company when necessary; also to sell or solicit sales of the machines of said corporation,-and did, in the discharge of his duties as the employee, operative, and laborer of said company, sell machines for them, and that, as such operative, employee, and laborer he set up and repaired machines for said company while in their employ as aforesaid, going from place to place so to do, took the machines from the railroad, unpacked same, bolted together and screwed together the same, and did all necessary work to make said machines work, bolting them together and fitting them so they would work, and that he performed manual labor as well as the labor of selling machines, and obeyed and carried out the instructions, orders, and directions given to him by said corporation through its officers and servants.’ His compensation was $100 per month. The question submitted is whether he was an ‘employee, operative, or laborer,’ and his claim for wages against said company entitled to a preference under the provisions of chapter 376, Laws 1885, which enacts that ‘Where a receiver of a corporation created or organized under the laws of this state and doing business therein, other than insurance and moneyed corporations, shall be appointed, the wages of the employees, operatives and laborers thereof shall be preferred to every other debt or claim against such corporation, and shall be paid by the receiver from the moneys of such corporation which shall first come to his hands.’

Bartlett, J., dissenting.

G. B. Wellington, for appellants.

Amasa J. Parker, for respondent.

ANDREWS, C. J. (after stating the facts).

The work which the claimant was employed to perform was in part the work or a mechanic, and in part that of an agent for the sale of machines manufactured by the corporation. His duties involved both the performance of manual labor, and the exercise of tact and skill as a sales agent of the company. He was, while acting in either capacity, an employee of the company, within the general and etymological meaning of the word. The word is defined in the Century Dictionary as ‘one who works for an employer; a person working for salary or wages; applied to any one so working, but usually only to clerks, workmen, laborers, etc., and but rarely to the higher officers of a government or corporation, or to domestic servants.’ It is insisted, however, on the part of the receivers, that he was not an ‘employee, operative, or laborer,’ within the meaning of the statute of 1885. It must be conceded that the word ‘employees' was not used in the statute in its broadest sense. This as well by reason of the words ‘operatives and laborers,’ with which it is associated, as of the decisions upon this and cognate statutes. If the legislature intended by the act of 1885 to prefer all debts owing by a corporation (other than an insurance or moneyed corporation), of which a receiver should be appointed, to ‘employees,’ using the word in its largest sense, the words ‘operatives and laborers,’ with which it is associated, are superfluous. The use of these associated words indicates that the word ‘employees,’ by which they are preceded, was used in a restricted and limited sense, and was not intended to comprehend all who were employed by the corporation, irrespective of the nature of their service and the relation which they held to the company. This restricted meaning was given to the word in the learned and able opinion of Judge Follett in the case of People v. Remington, 45 Hun, 329, which was affirmed by this court upon his opinion. 109 N. Y. 639,16 N. E. 680. The case of People v. Remington arose under the statute of 1885, the same statute involved in the present case; and it was there decided that neither the superintendent of a corporation employed at an annual salary, nor an attorney employed to render professional services for the corporation, nor a foreign agent for the sale of the goods of the corporation in China, who was to receive a commission on sales made by him in addition to an annual salary of $2,000, were ‘employees,’ within the statute, and that their earnings were not ‘wages of employees' entitled to preferential payment. In construing the eighteenth section of the general manufacturing corporation act, which imposes liability upon stockholders in corporations for debts owing to ‘laborers, servants or apprentices,’ the courts have confined its application to persons occupying subordinate positions, and have excluded from its protection the officers and managers or corporations, on the ground that they were not laborers or servants, within the meaning of the act. Coffin v. Reynolds, 37 N. Y. 640;Dean v. De Wolf, 82 N. Y. 626;Hill v. Spencer, 61 N. Y. 274;Wakefield v. Fargo, 90 N. Y. 213.

We must assume (under the case of People v. Remington), in this case, that the word ‘employees,’ in the act of 1885, is not to be accorded its widest lexicographical meaning; and it is difficult , if not impracticable, to define with precision the line of separation. The intention of the lawgiver is to be sought first in the words of a statute, and, if they are obscure, in the occasion of the enactment and in the policy which dictated it, when that can be legitimately ascertained. Prior or contemporaneous legislation on the same general subject may be resorted to in aid of the interpretation, but not to control the clear language of subsequent statutes. Words are not to be rejected as superfluous when it is practicable to give to each a distinct and consistent meaning. ‘The good expositor,’ says Lord Coke, ‘makes every sentence have its operation to suppress all the mischief. He gives effect to every word of the statute. He does not construe it so that anything should be vain and superfluous, nor yet make exposition against express words, but so expounds it that one part may stand agreeable with the other, and all may stand together.’ 8 Coke, 310. There is much difficulty in giving full force to the words of Lord Coke in the construction of many modern statutes, in view of the diffuseness and inaccuracy of the language used, but they furnish a useful guide, and suggest a needed caution. When the words of the statute do not perfectly express the intention, they are to have a rational interpretation, to be collected from the words and the policy which may be reasonably supposed to have dictated the enactment; and the interpretation may be rigorous or liberal, depending upon the interests with which it deals. Ruth. Inst. p. 104. ‘Except,’ says Bronson, J., in Waller v. Harris, 20 Wend. 561, ‘in relation to a few old statutes, which were long since overwhelmed by commentaries and decisions, the current of authority at the present day is in favor of reading statutes according to the natural and most obvious import of the language, without resorting to subtle and forced constructions for the purpose of either limiting or extending their operation.’ The word ‘employees' in the statute of 1885 is a word of larger import than the words ‘operatives and laborers,’ which follow it. Gurney v. Railway Co., 58 N. Y. 358. And, while it may embrace the latter classes, it is not confined to those who perform manual labor only; and to construe it in the narrowest sense, as embracing those classes only, would violate one of the accepted canons of construction to which we have referred,-that each word used in an enumeration in a statute of several classes or things is presumed to have been used to express a distinct and...