Consolidated Coal Company of St Louis v. People of the State of Illinois

• Decision Date: 14 April 1902
• Docket Number: No. 197,197
• Citation: 46 L.Ed. 872,22 S.Ct. 616,185 U.S. 203
• Parties: CONSOLIDATED COAL COMPANY OF ST. LOUIS, Plff. in Err. , v. PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

185 U.S. 203

22 S.Ct. 616

46 L.Ed. 872

CONSOLIDATED COAL COMPANY OF ST. LOUIS, Plff. in Err.,

v PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

No. 197.

Submitted March 19, 1902.

Decided April 14, 1902.

This was an action of assumpsit originally brought in the circuit court of St. Clair county by the people of the state of Illinois against the Consolidated Coal Company of St. Louis, a corporation of Illinois, to recover the sum of $1,818 for the fees of state mine inspectors for the inspection of certain coal mines located in Illinois, owned and operated by the defendant, under 'An Act Providing for the Health and Safety of Persons Employed in Coal Mines,' originally enacted May 28, 1879, and the amendments thereto.

The case was submitted to the court without a jury, upon a stipulation of facts, in which it was agreed that the mines of the defendant, thirty-one in number, had been inspected between November 2, 1895, and June 26, 1899, by a state inspector, whose aggregate fees were $1,818; that the secretary of the bureau of labor statistics presented the defendant with the inspection bills and demanded payment therefor, which defendant refused to pay.

It was further stipulated that the charge for the recovery of which this action was brought was made in pursuance of the act of May 28, 1879, and that the question to be raised and disposed of was the validity and constitutionality of so much of said above-entitled act and the amendments thereto as related to the inspection fees of the said mine inspectors, and the imposing upon the mine operator and owner the duty of paying such fees, and also whether there was any remedy at law to recover such fees.

A judgment having been entered for the payment of these fees, the case was carried by writ of error to the supreme court, where the judgment of the circuit court of St. Clair county was affirmed.

Mr. Charles W. Thomas for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Howland J. Hamlin for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

The act of the general assembly of the state of Illinois, entitled 'An Act to Provide for the Health and Safety of Persons Employed in Coal Mines,' originally passed May 28, 1879, subsequently incorporated in the Revised Statutes of 1895, and amended in 1897 (Hurd's Stat. 1897, p. 1088), provides as printedin the margin.¹

The supreme court found that all the state questions involved in this case had been disposed of in Chicago, W & V. Coal Co. v. People, 181 Ill. 270, 48 L. R. A. 554, 54 N. E. 961. It only remains for us to determine whether the validity of the state statute above cited was drawn in question on the ground of its repugnancy to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the decision was in favor of its validity, when it should have been held invalid. While the constitutionality of the law was not specially set up and claimed before the trial in the circuit court, there was a motion made in arrest of judgment, in which the invalidity of the statute was specially set up upon the ground of its repugnancy to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The motion was denied, although the su- preme court did not in terms pass upon the Federal constitutionality of the law. But this was a sufficient presentation of the Federal question.

The regulation of mines and miners, their hours of labor, and the precautions that shall be taken to insure their safety, health, and comfort, are so obviously within the police power of the several states that no citation of authorities in necessary to vindicate the general principle. Many of these cases are reviewed in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 42 L. ed. 780, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 383, in which it was held to be competent for a state legislature to limit the hours of labor, in mines and smelting works, to eight per day.

1. We do not understand the general principle to be questioned that the state may appoint mining inspectors and provide for their payment by the owners of mines (Northwestern Union Packet Co. v. St. Louis, 100 U. S. 423, 25 L. ed. 688; Morgan's L. & T. R. & S. S. Co. v. Louisiana Bd. of Health, 118 U. S. 455, 30 L. ed. 237, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1114; Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96, 101, 32 L. ed. 352, 354, 2 Inters. Com. Rep. 238, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 26 L. ed. 238; Charlotte, C. & A. R. Co. v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386, 35 L. ed. 1051, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255; Chicago, W. & V. Coal Co. v. People, 181 Ill. 270, 48 L. R. A. 554, 54 N. E. 961); but it is insisted that the acts here involved, in so far as they give to district mining inspectors a discretion as to the number of times they shall inspect such mines and a further discrimination as to what fees they shall charge, within the limit fixed by these acts, is in contravention of the 14th Amendment forbidding a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.

2. Another question is whether the act, as amended in 1897, in so far as it discriminates as to penalties imposed upon some persons engaged in the mining business, and not upon others, is a proper exercise of the police power. It is true that the act of 1897 amended the former law of 1895, by limiting its application to coal mines 'where more than five men are employed at any one time.' This is a species of classification which the legislature is at liberty to adopt, provided it be not wholly arbitrary or unreasonable, as it was in Cotting v. Kansas City Stock Yards Co. 183 U. S. 79, sub nom. Cotting v. Godard, ante, p. 30, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 30, in which an act defining what should constitute public stock yards, and regulat- ing all charges connected therewith, was held to be unconstitutional, because it applied only to one particular company, and not to other companies or corporations engaged in a like business in Kansas, and thereby denied to that company the equal protection of the laws. In the case under consideration there is no attempt arbitrarily to select one mine for inspection, but only to assume that mines which are worked upon so small a scale as to require only five operatives would not be likely to need the careful inspection provided for the larger mines, where the workings were carried on upon a larger scale or at a greater depth from the surface, and where a much larger force would be necessary for their successful operation. It is quite evident that a mine which is operated by only five men could scarcely have passed the experimental stage, or that precautions necessary in the operation of coal mines of ordinary magnitude would be required in such cases. There was clearly reasonable foundation for a discrimination here.

It is true that the act of 1897 does not in terms declare that the act of 1895 shall only apply to coal mines where more than five men are employed at any one time, but merely exempts the owners of such mines from punishment for violations of the general law. No one, however, can read this act, in connection with the prior act of 1895, without perceiving an intention on the part of the legislature to exempt such mines from the scope of the act. An act which declares it to be unlawful for any person to operate mines of a certain class without first complying with all the conditions and sanitary regulations required under existing laws, and paying all inspection fees, and, in case of refusal, to make it the duty of the mine inspector, through the state's attorney, to proceed in behalf of the state against such person, to compel the discontinuance of the mine, is so plainly an exemption from the operation of the law of all other mines as to constitute a classification in their favor.

3. Another charge is that by § 11d 'it shall be the duty of each inspector, as often as he may deem it necessary and proper, and at least four times a year, to inspect each and every mine in his inspection district.' It requires no argument to show that, for the protection of the operatives, one mine may be required to be inspected oftener than another, depending largely upon the number of miners, the depths of their workings, and the nature of the ground through which the excavations are made. While at a certain stage of excavation the precautions imposed by the mining inspector may be quite adequate for the protection of the operatives, at another time the same precautions would be obviously insufficient, depending largely upon the rapidity with which the excavations were made and the changes of air observed as the excavations progressed.

It is true that the act itself furnishes no basis for a classification as to the number of inspections and as to the price charged in each case, except that it provides that no inspection shall be required unless five operatives are employed at the same time, that at least four inspections shall be made each years, and that the fees shall be dependent upon the length of time consumed and the expense necessarily incurred in the inspection of such mine. It also provides that the charges for each inspection shall not be less than $6 nor more than $10.

It is insisted that such classification of mines, as to the number of inspections and fees therefor, should be made by the legislature, and...