Connally v. General Const Co, 314

• Decision Date: 04 January 1926
• Docket Number: No. 314,314
• Citation: 46 S.Ct. 126,269 U.S. 385,70 L.Ed. 322
• Parties: CONNALLY, Commissioner of Labor of Oklahoma, et al. v. GENERAL CONST. CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

269 U.S. 385

46 S.Ct. 126

70 L.Ed. 322

CONNALLY, Commissioner of Labor of Oklahoma, et al.

v GENERAL CONST. CO.

No. 314.

Argued Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 1925.

Decided Jan. 4, 1926.

Messrs. George F. Short, of Oklahoma City, Okl., and J. Berry King, of Muskogee, Okl., for appellants.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 385-387 intentionally omitted] Mr. J. D. Lydick, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for appellee.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit to enjoin certain state and county officers of Oklahoma from enforcing the provisions of section 7255 and section 7257, Compiled Oklahoma Statutes 1921, challenged as unconstitutional. Section 7255 creates an eight-hour day for all persons employed by or on behalf of the state, etc., and provides:

'That not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed shall be paid to laborers, workmen, mechanics, prison guards, janitors in public institutions, or other persons so employed by or on behalf of the state, * * * and laborers, workmen, mechanics, or other persons employed by contractors or subcontractors in the execution of any contract or contracts with the state, * * * shall be deemed to be employed by or on behalf of the state. * * *'

For any violation of the section, a penalty is imposed by section 7257 of a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500, or imprisonment for not less than three nor more than six months. Each day that the violation continues is declared to be a separate offense.

The material averments of the bill, shortly stated, are to the following effect: The construction company, under contracts with the state, is engaged in constructing certain bridges within the state. In such work, it employs a number of laborers, workmen, and mechanics, with each of whom it has agreed as to the amount of wages to be paid upon the basis of an eight-hour day, and the amount so agreed upon is reasonable and commensurate with the services rendered and agreeable to the employee in each case.

The Commissioner of Labor complained that the rate of wages paid by the company to laborers was only $3.20 per day, whereas, he asserted, the current rate in the locality where the work was being done was $3.60, and gave notice that, unless advised of an intention immediately to comply with the law, action would be taken to enforce compliance. From the correspondence set forth in the bill, it appears that the commissioner based his complaint upon an investigation made by his representative concerning wages 'paid to laborers in the vicinity of Cleveland,' Okl., near which town one of the bridges was being constructed. This investigation disclosed the following list of employers with the daily rate of wages paid by each: City, $3.60 and $4; Johnson Refining Co., $3.60 and $4.05; Prairie Oil & Gas, $4; Gypsy Oil Co., $4; Gulf Pipe Line Co., $4; Brickyard, $3 and $4; I. Hansen, $3.60; General Construction Company, $3.20; Moore & Pitts Ice Company, $100 per month; cotton gins, $3.50 and $4; Mr. Pitts, $4; Prairie Pipe Line Company, $4; C. B. McCormack, $3; Harry McCoy, $3. The scale of wages paid by the construction company to its laborers was stated to be as follows: Six men at $3.20 per day, 7 men at $3.60, 4 men at $4.00, 2 men at $4.40, 4 men at $4.80, 1 man at $5.20, and 1 man at $6.50.

In determining the rate of wages to be paid by the company, the commissioner claimed to be acting under authority of a statute of Oklahoma, which imposes upon him the duty of carrying into effect all laws in relation to labor. In the territory surrounding the bridges being constructed by plaintiff, there is a variety of work performed by laborers, etc., the value of whose services depends upon the class and kind of labor performed and the efficiency of the workmen. Neither the wages paid nor the work performed are uniform. Wages have varied since plaintiff entered into its contracts for constructing the bridges and employing its men, and it is impossible to determine under the circumstances whether the sums paid by the plaintiff or the amount designated by the commissioner or either of them constitute the current per diem wage in the locality. Further averments are to the effect that the commissioner has threatened the company, and its officers, agents, and representatives, with criminal prosecutions under the foregoing statutory provisions, and, unless restrained, the county attorneys for various counties named will institute such prosecutions; and that, under section 7257, providing that each day's failure to pay current wages shall constitute a separate offense, maximum penalties may be inflicted aggregating many thousands of dollars in fines and many years of imprisonment.

The constitutional grounds of attack, among others, are that the statutory provisions, if enforced, will deprive plaintiff, its officers, agents and representatives, of their liberty and property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution; that they contain no ascertainable standard of guilt; that it cannot be determined with any degree of certainty what sum constitutes a current wage in any locality; and that the term 'locality' itself is fatally vague and uncertain. The bill is a long one, and, without further review, it is enough to say that, if the constitutional attack upon the statute be sustained, the averments justify the equitable relief prayed.

Upon the bill and a motion to dismiss it, in the nature of a demurrer attacking its sufficiency, an application for an interlocutory injunction was heard by a court of three judges, under section 266, Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1243), and granted; the allegations of the bill being taken as true. General Const. Co. v. Connally (D. C.) 3 F. (2d) 666.

That the terms of a penal statute creating a new offense must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties is a well-recognized requirement, consonant alike with ordinary notions of fair play and the settled rules of law; and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 216, 221, 34 S. Ct. 853, 58 L. Ed. 1284; Collins v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 634, 638, 34 S. Ct. 924, 58 L. Ed. 1510.

The question whether given legislative enactments have been thus wanting in certainty has frequently been before this court. In some of the cases the statutes involved were upheld; in others, declared invalid. The precise point of differentiation in some instances is not easy of statement; but it will be enough for present purposes to say generally that the decisions of the court, upholding statutes as sufficiently certain, rested upon the conclusion that they employed words or phrases having a technical or other special meaning, well enough known to enable those within their reach to correctly apply them, Hygrade Provision Co. v. Sherman, 266 U. S. 497, 502, 45 S. Ct. 141, 69 L. Ed. 402; Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343, 348, 38 S. Ct. 323, 62 L. Ed. 763, or a well-settled common-law meaning, notwithstanding an element of degree in the definition as to which estimates might differ, Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 376, 33 S. Ct. 780, 57 L. Ed. 1232; International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra, at page 223 (34 S. Ct. 853), or, as broadly stated by Mr. Chief Justice White in United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 92, 41 S. Ct. 298, 301 (65 L. Ed. 516, 14 A. L. R. 1045), 'that, for reasons found to result either from the text of the statutes involved or the subjects with which they dealt, a standard of some sort was afforded.' See also, Waters-Pierce Oil Co....