Charles Barrett v. State of Indiana
| Decision Date | 26 May 1913 |
| Docket Number | No. 245,245 |
| Citation | 229 U.S. 26,33 S.Ct. 692,57 L.Ed. 1050 |
| Parties | CHARLES E. BARRETT, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF INDIANA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. John C. Chaney and Charles E. Barrett for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Thomas M. Honan, Attorney General of Indiana, and Messrs. Edwin Corr, Thomas H. Branaman, and James E. McCullough for defendant in error.
The plaintiff in error was convicted in a circuit court of Indiana of the violation of a statute of that state, requiring entries in certain coal mines to be of not less than a pre- scribed width. The case was twice before the supreme court of Indiana. 172 Ind. 169, 87 N. E. 7; 175 Ind. 112, 93 N. E. 543. From the judgment in the latter case, affirming the conviction, a writ of error was prosecuted. The assignments of error raise the question of the validity of the statute under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The statute provides :
The next section provides that anyone violating the act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and prescribes the penalty.
That the legislatures of the states may, in the exercise of the police power, regulate a lawful business, is too well settled to require more than a reference to some of the cases in this court in which that right has been sustained as against objections under the 14th Amendment. Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U. S. 183, 44 L. ed. 725, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 633; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 49 L. ed. 643, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 765; McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539, 53 L. ed. 315, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 206; Williams v. Arkansas, 217 U. S. 79, 54 L. ed. 673, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 493, 18 Ann. Cas. 865; Watson v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173, 54 L. ed. 987, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 644; Schmidinger v. Chicago, 226 U. S. 578, 57 L. ed. ——, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 182. That the mining of coal is a dangerous business and therefore subject to regulation is also well settled. It is an occupation carried on at varying depths beneath the surface of the earth, amidst surroundings entailing danger to life and limb, and has been, as it may be, the subject of regulation in the coalmining states by statutes which seek to secure the safety of those thus employed. The legislature is itself the judge of the means necessary and proper to that end, and only such regulations as are palpably arbitrary can be set aside because of the requirements of due process of law under the Federal Constitution. When such regulations have a reasonable relation to the subject-matter, and are not arbitrary and oppressive, it is not for the courts to say that they are beyond the exercise of the legitimate power of legislation. Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co. 199 U. S. 401, 50 L. ed. 246, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 66; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. 220 U. S. 61, 55 L. ed. 369, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 337, Ann. Cas. 1912 C, 160.
We are unable to say that the requirement that entries shall have a certain width beyond the tracks, as prescribed by this statute, would not promote the safety of the employees engaged in that work. The legislature found, for reasons sufficient to itself, that such additional width, kept clear...
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