Braceville Coal Co. v. People

• Citation: 147 Ill. 66,35 N.E. 62
• Parties: BRACEVILLE COAL CO. v. PEOPLE.
• Decision Date: 26 October 1893
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

147 Ill. 66

35 N.E. 62

BRACEVILLE COAL CO.

v.PEOPLE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 26, 1893.

Appeal from Grundy county court; Alva R. Jordan, Judge.

Indictment of the Braceville Coal Company for violation of the ‘Weekly Payment Law.’ Defendant was convicted, and it appeals. Reversed.

George S. House, for appellant.

Samuel C. Stough, State's Atty., (Wm. Mooney, of counsel,) for the people.

The other facts fully appear in the following statement by SHOPE, J.:

The appellant was tried before a justice of the peace, and found guilty of violating an act of the legislature entitled ‘An act to provide for the weekly payment of wages by corporations,’ approved April 23, 1891, and the penalty of $50 imposed, for which and costs judgment was rendered accordingly. The case was taken by appeal to the county court of Grundy county, where a trial was a held by the court, a jury having been waived, and appellant again found guilty, and the penalty of $50 imposed, and judgment entered for that amount and costs: and the case is brought here by further appeal.

The act of the legislature above referred to provides ‘that every manufacturing, mining, quarrying, lumbering, mercantile, street, electric and elevated railway, steamboat, telegraph, telephone and municipal corporation and every incorporated express company and water company, shall pay weekly each and every employe engaged in its business the wages earned by such employe to within six days of the date of such payment; provided, however, that if at any time of payment any employe shall be absent from his regular place of labor he shall be entitled to said payment at any time thereafter upon demand.’ And, after providing a penalty of not less than $10 nor more than $50 for each violation, that such action be commenced within 30 days after the violation, notice to corporation that an action will be brought, defenses that may not be set up, etc., proceeds: ‘No assignment of future wages payable weekly under the provisions of this act shall be valid if made to the corporation from whom such wages are to become due, or to any person on behalf of such corporation or if made or procured to be made to any person for the purpose of relieving such corporation from the obligations to pay weekly under the provisions of this act. Nor shall any of said corporations require any agreement from an employe to accept wages at other periods than as provided in section 1 of this act, as a condition of employment.’

Appellant became a corporation under the general incorporation law, in force July 1, 1872, and for several years past has been engaged in the business of coal mining, with its principal office at Braceville, Grundy county, this state. A certain contract is provided by appellant, which all persons desiring employment in its service are required to sign as a condition precedent to such employment. The complaining witness, Thomas McGuire, in November, 1891, applied to the superintendent of appellant's mines for work, and was required to sign one of its contracts, which was done, in duplicate, each party retaining a copy. Certain rules and regulations of the company on the back of its contracts are, by the terms of each contract, made a part of the same. The contract of witness McGuire, after stipulating, among other things, the wages to be paid, etc., provides: ‘All payments hereunder to be made on regular pay day, and in compliance with the rules and regulations above named; and pay day is hereby fixed for and on the first Saturday after the 10th of each month, when and at which time all wages or moneys that may have been earned during and in the calendar month next prior to such pay day shall be paid, less all moneys owing said party of the first part on any account whatever.’ By the seventh rule, printed on the back of said contract, and made part thereof, it is provided: ‘Every employe will be paid once a month at regular pay day all wages or moneys he may have earned during and in the calendar month next prior to such pay day, after deducting any indebtedness which such employe may owe to the company, or which the company, with the consent of such employe, may have assumed to pay to any other person.’ McGuire entered upon the employment under the contract November 3, 1891, and quit November 13, 1891, and demanded his wages. The company refused to pay him before the next pay day, when he gave the notice under the statute, and caused this suit to be brought.

SHOPE, J., (after stating the facts.)

The principles that must control the decisions of this case were announced in Frorer v. People, 141 Ill. 171, 31 N. E. Rep. 395. Unless we are prepared to recede from the doctrine of that case, and the subsequent case of Ramsey v. People, 142 Ill. 380, 32 N. E. Rep. 364, the act under consideration must be likewise held unconstitutional and void. Section 2, art. 2, of the constitution of this state guaranties that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. We said in the Frorer Case, the words ‘due process of law’ ‘are to be held synonymous with ‘the law of the land,” and, quoting from Millett v. People, 117 Ill. 294, 7 N. E. Rep. 631, said: ‘And this means general public law, binding upon all the members of the community under all circumstances, and not partial or private laws, affecting the rights of private individuals or classes of individuals.’ There can be no liberty, protected by government, that is not regulated by such laws, as will preserve the right of each citizen to pursue his own advancement and happiness in his own way, subject to the restraints necessary to secure the same right to all others. The fundamental principle upon which liberty is based in free and enlightened government is equality under the law of the land. It has accordingly been every where held that liberty, as that term is used in the constitution, means not only freedom of the citizen from servitude and restraint, but is deemed to embrace the right of every man to be free in the use of his powers and faculties, and to adopt and pursue such avocation or calling as he may choose, subject only to the restraints necessary to secure the common welfare. Frorer v. People, supra; Com. v. Perry, (Mass.) 28 N. E. Rep. 1126; People v. Gillson, 109 N. Y. 389, 17 N. E. Rep. 343; Live Stock, etc., Ass'n. v. Crescent City, etc., Co., 1 Abb. (U. S.) 388;Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 36;Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431, 6 Atl. Rep. 354;State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, 10 S. E. Rep 285. Property, in its broader sense, is not the physical thing which may be the subject of ownership, but is the right of dominion, possession, and power of disposition which may be acquired over it. And the right of property preserved by the constitution is the right not only to possess and enjoy it, but also to acquire it in any lawful mode, or by following any lawful industrial pursuit which the citizen, in the exercise of the liberty guarantied, may choose to adopt. Labor is...