Arizona Power Co. v. State

• Decision Date: 23 June 1917
• Docket Number: Criminal 424
• Citation: 19 Ariz. 114,166 P. 275
• Parties: ARIZONA POWER COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant, v. STATE, Respondent
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

166 P. 275

19 Ariz. 114

ARIZONA POWER COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellant, v. STATE, Respondent

Criminal No. 424

Supreme Court of Arizona

June 23, 1917

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the county of Yavapai. Frank O. Smith, Judge. Affirmed.

Mr. Le Roy Anderson, for Appellant.

Mr Wiley E. Jones, Attorney General, and Mr. Geo. W. Harben and Mr. R. W. Kramer, Assistant Attorneys General, for the State.

OPINION

ROSS, J.

An information was filed against the appellant, charging it with violating sections 705 and 706 of the Penal Code of 1913, in failing and refusing to pay one of its employees the wages due the employee at the time of his quitting the service. The sections referred to read as follows:

"705. Whenever an employee quits the service or is discharged therefrom, such employee shall be paid whatever wages are due him, in lawful money of the United States of America, or by check of even date, on a bank, and said wages shall be paid at once.

"706. Every contractor mentioned in section 704 hereof and every corporation (except municipal corporations) violating any of the provisions of the two preceding sections shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than five hundred dollars for each offense."

The facts are undisputed; the only contest being over the validity of the law. The case was tried by the court without a jury, and from the verdict and judgment of conviction this appeal is prosecuted.

The appellant contends that the statute violates section 18, article 2, of our Constitution, which forbids imprisonment for debt, except in cases of fraud. The penalty provided for its breach is a fine, and not imprisonment, and, so far as the appellant is concerned, other provisions of our law authorizing imprisonment in some cases for failure to pay fine cannot affect it; a corporation cannot be imprisoned. Ex parte Crane, 26 Cal.App. 22, 145 P. 733, relied upon by appellant is not in point, in that Crane was actually imprisoned for debt. It is not possible, in fact or in law, to imprison appellant, either on mesne or final process; it cannot, as an individual, be arrested or committed to jail. The other two cases (State v. Paint Rock Coal Co., 92 Tenn. 81, 36 Am. St. Rep. 68, 20 S.W. 499, and State v. Prudential Coal Co., 130 Tenn. 275, L.R.A. 1915B, 645, 170 S.W. 56), cited by appellant fully sustain its contentions, but we cannot agree with the court's reasoning in the decision of those cases.

The Tennessee statute made it a misdemeanor for any corporation doing business in that state not to pay its employee his wages in lawful money semi-monthly on the 15th and 30th of each month, and fixed the punishment as a fine only. The law was held unconstitutional in both the above cases for the stated reason:

"'The act of the legislature in question, while not directly authorizing imprisonment for debt, does attempt to create a crime for the nonpayment of debts evidenced by check, scrip, or order, and for such crime provides a penalty, which may or may not be followed by imprisonment. In that way and for that reason the act is violative of the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitutional provision above cited. It is an indirect imposition of imprisonment for the nonpayment of debt, and is therefore clearly within the constitutional inhibition.' On failure to pay any fine adjudged, by operation of law imprisonment would be imposed on the violator of the statute, if valid."

The reason given, when applied to a natural person charged with violating the statute, may be satisfactory and sufficient; but just how a corporation failing to pay a fine may be placed behind iron bars is not conceivable -- indeed, it is not possible. If the fine is ever collected, it will not be by jailing the corporation, but by execution against its property. The constitutional inhibition is against imprisonment for debt; it does not prohibit the use of other means to enforce the payment of a just debt. The stigma of imprisonment is forbidden, and while the debtor, honest and dishonest, is thus protected by the Constitution, the legislature is not denied the power to impose penalties or fines as a means of inducing an unwilling and litigious employer to make payment of wages promptly and at short intervals when the public welfare demands and requires it.

The Constitutions of Arkansas and Missouri prohibit imprisonment for debt. In each of these states the courts have sustained statutes making it a misdemeanor for an employer to fail to pay wages of an employee at stated intervals. It is true that the particular question was not urged in those cases, and it was only passed upon incidentally. Arkansas Stave Co. v. State, 94 Ark. 27, 140 Am. St. Rep. 103, 27 L.R.A. (N.S.) 255, 125 S.W. 1001; State v. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co., 242 Mo. 339, 147 S.W. 118. In the Missouri case the court said:

"Under the rules announced in the foregoing cases, if the General Assembly may, on account of the unequal situation of laborers and their corporate employers, fix the time for paying wages, it may with equal propriety prescribe fines and penalties to compel the payment of such wages."

The appellant is not in a position to challenge the constitutionality of the law on the ground of its application to individuals; that question can only be raised by parties whose rights are involved or affected thereby. Gherna v. State, 16 Ariz. 344, Ann. Cas. 1916D, 94, 146 P. 494.

It is next objected that the statute violates section 25, article 2, of our Constitution, and section 10, article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting the passage of laws impairing the obligation of contracts. It is asserted that appellant's charter to do business in Arizona antedates this law, and that at the time it was licensed to do business in this jurisdiction the right to contract with its employees as to the time of payment of wages was unrestricted, and that this right continues, notwithstanding the statute involved. As a matter of fact section 705 of the Penal Code of 1913 was on our statutes long anterior to appellant's entrance into the state. It is found in the Penal Code of 1901 as section 616. Section 706 of the present Penal Code differs from section 617 of the Penal Code of 1901 principally in that it makes the punishment a fine between a minimum and maximum sum and applies to a much more limited class. So far as the appellant is concerned, the law is unchanged. The point, therefore, that appellant makes, that there was no provision in the organic laws of the territory authorizing amendments, alterations, or changes of the charter of corporations at the time it entered this field, is without merit.

Many of the courts base the power of the legislature to enact legislation of the character we have here upon the police power, and we are persuaded that that must be one of its sources. In Erie R.R. Co. v. Williams, 233 U.S. 685, 51 L.R.A. (N.S.) 1097, 34 S.Ct. 761, 58 L.Ed. 1155, Justice McKENNA based it both upon reserved power of the state and its police power. In this case it is also held that a statute of New York requiring certain employers to pay wages bimonthly was not a deprivation of property or of liberty without due process of law, and therefore not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Appellant makes the further contention that this law violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in that it does not include other employers of labor engaged in the same kind of work or employment under the same conditions and circumstances as those employers against which it is directed. In other words, he objects to the classification as unreasonable and arbitrary. Included within the terms of the law are corporations only; no other employers of labor are affected by it, even though engaged in the same occupation or business. Whether this classification of corporations, based solely upon their artificial character, is permissible, is the question. If it is permissible, then, of course, the law operates upon all alike within the class, and will not deny the equal protection of the law to the appellant, as every other corporation in the state is charged with the same duty and is subject to the same penalties. In Arkansas Stave Co. v. State, supra, wherein the same question was involved, the court said:

"Nor does this act deny to the defendant the equal protection of the law. It applies to all corporations. Within the sphere of its operation all artificial persons are treated alike under like circumstances and conditions. Because the act only applies to corporations, and not to natural persons, it does not contravene the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution. Nearly all legislation is special, either in the objects sought to be attained or in its application to classes; and the general rule is that legislation does not infringe the constitutional right of equal protection where all persons whether natural or artificial, of such class, are treated alike under like circumstances and conditions. In the case of Missouri P.R. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U.S. 205, 32 L.Ed. 107. 8 S.Ct. 1161, Mr. Justice FIELD speaking of this provision of the federal Constitution, says: 'Such legislation does not infringe upon the clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, requiring equal protection of the laws, because it is special in its character. . ....