Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. v. State

• Decision Date: 17 February 1913
• Docket Number: 16,330
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: BUCKEYE COTTON OIL CO. v. STATE

60 So. 775

103 Miss. 767

BUCKEYE COTTON OIL CO. v. STATE

No. 16,330

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 17, 1913

APPEAL from the circuit court of Hinds county, HON. W. A. HENRY Judge.

The Buckeye Cotton Oil Company was convicted of working employees over ten hours a day and appeal.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirm on conviction of one offense.

Alexander & Alexander, attorneys for appellant.

The lower court erred in convicting the appellant on each of the separate counts for having worked each of the firemen on the same day more than ten hours per day. We submit to the court that a strict interpretation of this penal statute clearly negatives the idea that the working of each employee each day is a separate offense. The court itself in the Newman case has said that the legislature will not be deemed or held to have attempted an absurdity or vain thing. A mill employing two hundred men, for instance, violating the law one day as to all of the men, would no doubt be called upon, as will be shown by a simple calculation, in case the limit of the law were applied, to surrender its whole plant and equipment to the state in fines. Furthermore, the law provides: "It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation engaged in manufacturing or repairing to work their employees more than ten hours per day." Had the legislature intended to make it a criminal offense to work each employee each day more than ten hours it would have said so, and the offense is the working of the employees, not separately, but collectively more than ten hours per day; and in section 2 of the act it provides, "and each day's violation shall constitute a separate offense," which clearly shows what the legislature intended to be the offense by saying in so many words that each day's violation was the offense and not each employee. Under section 1603 of the Code of Mississippi, 1906, words must be given their usual meaning and signification, and we submit that clearly this was intended and the lower court was in error in convicting on each count.

To our mind this is such a flagrant violation of the terms of the statute that we anticipate a reversal on this ground, but as said in the beginning of this brief, we sincerely trust that should the court be of the same opinion, a reversal on this ground will not preclude them from passing upon all of the questions presented, not only for the benefit of appellant but for the public generally.

We submit to the court that appellant was not engaged in manufacturing. There are many decisions in the books defining "manufacturing" and there is a wide difference in opinion as to just what the term means. The original signification of the word is derived from the Latin and means to make by hand. Since the introduction of machinery and the numerous strides invention has made along this line, the meaning of the word in its usual significance has undergone a complete transformation. Manufacturing, as generally used means the converting of raw material into some finished product by machinery. This court in the Newman case defined "manufacturing" in its opinion on the suggestion of error, as follows:

"When we now speak of manufacturing we usually have in mind an organized force of laborers working with machinery to produce from the raw materials the finished product."

The court has well defined the word and in view of the statute making it the duty of this court to give the word its usual significance, we submit that the work done at appellant's plants was not that of manufacturing. It appears from the statement of fact, as follows: "In this process, no other ingredient of any kind is added to the product; neither is it combined with any other material or component, the process being one of separating cottonseed into its four component parts, above stated."

The component parts in their crude state, including the oil and the linters, the separation of the linters being nothing more than a picking of the cotton off the kernel, and the pressing of the oil out of the kernel being nothing more than a cider press or a sugar mill; all of the products except the oil are by-products. The courts have given a different definition of the word "manufacturing" dependent upon the application of the statute. To statutes exempting manufacturing plants from taxation a liberal construction has been given, but to penal statutes and to criminal statutes necessarily the word has been used in its usual and strictest sense.

In the case of Tidewater Oil Co. v. United States, 171 U.S 210, cited and approved in State v. Am. Sug. Ref Co., 25 So. 447, the court said: "Ordinarily the article manufactured takes a different form, or at least subserves a different purpose from the original materials; and usually it is given a different name."

In the case of People v. Roberts, 145 N.Y. 357, the court defined manufacturing as follows: "The process of manufacturing is supposed to produce some new article by the application of skill and labor to raw materials."

In the case of State v. Eckendorf, 14 So. 518, the manufacturer of bread and ice cream was held not to be a manufacturer. Likewise in the case of the City of New Orleans v. Nannessier, 32 La. Ann. 1075: "Manufacturing consists in giving new combinations to matter which has already gone through artificial process." Norris v. Commonwealth, 27 Pa. 949. And it was similarly defined in City of New Orleans v. LeBlanc, 34 La. Ann. 596.

Similarly electricity was not construed a "manufactured article" under a statute similar to the one in question. Commonwealth v. N. O. Elec. Light & Power Co., 14 L. R. A. 107, 145 Pa. 105; Commonwealth v. Edison, etc., Co., 145 Pa. 131; Elec., etc., Co. v. Frederick City, 36 L. R. A. 130.

It therefore appears from a collation of the authorities defining "manufacturing," that, giving the word its usual significance, as it should be, it could not be held to include the separating of any article such as oil in its natural state, without any addition of chemicals, or subjecting it to any process or refining.

Lastly, we contend that the word of an oil mill in its very nature is a work of emergency and, therefore, comes within the first exception, as stated in the statute. As will appear from the statement of facts, the oil mill industry is a peculiar one. Cottonseed, when allowed to become damp in the damp fall and winter atmosphere of Mississippi, begin to sprout and become heated, and quickly spoil. The crop matures at about the same time all over Mississippi, and the mill is idle except for four months in the year during the seed season. This seed cannot be carried over until the summer as it would be sure to spoil and, therefore, the year's work must be done in four months if the seed of the farmers is to be utilized. By reason of this emergency it is absolutely necessary to work by night and day on two shifts of twelve hours each, with one hour off for refreshment for each laborer. With three shifts of eight hours each, it would be impossible to operate because the laborers could not be paid as much and labor could not be obtained and the business conducted on a paying basis. Therefore, we submit on the statement of facts that the work is one of necessity and comes within the intention of the statute. The word "necessity" implies that there is some reason which would benefit the greatest number of people why the statute should not be applied, or some reason which would make it inequitable or unjust to apply the statute. We submit that this is the case, as presented by the facts, and that the exception of emergency should be applied.

The same might be said with reference to the exception of "public necessity." The farmer must sell his seed, but he cannot do so unless there is a demand for same and the mills cannot take it unless they can work it, and the mills cannot work it unless they work night and day, and they cannot work night and day except on two shifts of eleven hours each.

Watkins & Watkins, attorneys for appellant.

We contended in the lower court, and we shall present to this court our views to the effect that chapter 157 of the Acts of 1912, known as the Ten-Hour Law, if the appellant can be properly convicted under the same, is unconstitutional and void, in that the same prevents persons sui juris from making their own contracts, and therefore, violates the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which is in the following language:

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The agreed statement of facts in this case shows that the business carried on by the appellant, in which it was working the employees shown in the record, was in no manner injurious to the good health of said employees, nor was the same detrimental to the good morals, or injurious in any manner to the health or well-being of the community. That being true, we respectfully submit to the court that any legislative enactment which would prevent the appellant from working its employees more than ten hours would deprive it of its property without due process of law, and be void as a violation of the organic law of the United States above referred to.

Again no one denies at this day the authority of the legislature to pass usury laws, regulating the rate of interest at which money shall be lent. The public is interested in such laws; the weak are thereby, to a certain extent, protected against the oppression, greed and cupidity of those...