Hawkins v. Smith

• Decision Date: 20 May 1912
• Citation: 147 S.W. 1042
• Parties: HAWKINS v. SMITH et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

147 S.W. 1042

HAWKINS v. SMITH et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

May 20, 1912.

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (§§ 245, 301) — EQUAL PROTECTION OF LAWS—DUE PROCESS OF LAW.

Rev. St. 1909, §§ 5440-5444, making owners of mines liable for injury to employés by negligence of fellow servants, and thereby abolishing the fellow-servant rule, are not invalid as depriving one of the equal protection of the laws, or of his property without due process of law, in violation of Const. U. S. Amend. 14 and Const. Mo. art. 2, § 30, and article 4, § 53, since, in view of the hazards incident to miners, legislation applicable to them as a class is valid.

2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (§§ 208, 245) — EQUAL PROTECTION OF LAWS.

The statute is not invalid because it excludes from its operation persons engaged in the operation, construction, or repairing of concentrating mills, flumes, or tramways above ground; such classification being based on reasonable grounds.

3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (§§ 208, 245) — EQUAL PROTECTION OF LAWS—DUE PROCESS OF LAW.

The statute, though limited in its application to employés in mines producing mineral, and exempting from the liabilities imposed prospectors and others whose mines have not reached the point of production, is not invalid as denying the equal protection of the laws nor as class legislation, since the classification is valid.

4. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (§§ 70, 208)—CLASS LEGISLATION—VALIDITY.

The Legislature may select and classify objects of legislation, and may exercise a wide discretion in so doing, and a classification is not class legislation unless arbitrary and unreasonable, and it is only when the legislative power has been transcended that the courts may interfere.

5. DEATH (§ 10)—DEATH OF MINERS—SURVIVAL OF ACTIONS—STATUTES.

Under Rev. St. 1909, § 5426, providing that when the death of a person shall be caused by such a wrongful act that, if death had not ensued, the party injured could recover damages, the person guilty of the wrong shall be liable to an action for damages therefor, the right of action given by section 5440, making every mining operator liable for damages sustained by any servant by reason of the negligence of any other servant, is not given solely to an injured servant, but, in case of his death, his widow may sue for the death, though the Legislature by amendment added an express provision giving such right of action.

6. STATUTES (§ 225¾) — CONSTRUCTION — LEGISLATIVE INTENT.

The court, in construing a statute declaratory of former laws, will not construe it to be merely declaratory, where a different purpose is clearly within its language, as well as germane to new provisions enacted in immediate connection with them and in harmony with the dominant legislative purpose giving rise to the enactment.

7. STATUTES (§§ 174, 175)—CONSTRUCTION— LEGISLATIVE INTENT.

The court in construing a statute will not convict the Legislature of doing a useless and unreasonable thing, unless there is no other reasonable construction possible.

8. STATUTES (§ 185)—ENACTMENT.

The Legislature cannot bring a statute into existence by merely assuming in another independent statute that it exists.

9. STATUTES (§ 185)—CONSTRUCTION—LEGISLATIVE INTENT.

Where the language of a statute is unambiguous, mere assumptions in one of its sections that the others thereof possess a meaning contrary to the clear import of their language does not justify the court in construing into the sections the assumption thus made.

10. DEATH (§ 9)—ACTION FOR DEATH—STATUTES —CONSTRUCTION.

Rev. St. 1909, § 5426, providing that when the death of a person shall be caused by a wrongful act of another, and the act is such as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled the person injured to sue therefor, the person guilty of the act shall be liable to an action for damages, notwithstanding the death of the person injured, is general and is applicable to causes of action created subsequent to the passage of the statute.

11. STATUTES (§ 142)—AMENDMENT—IMPLICATION.

The Legislature may not amend a statute by inference from acts subsequently passed.

Graves, J., dissenting.

In Banc. Appeal from Circuit Court, Jasper County; Howard Gray, Judge.

Action by Hattie Hawkins against James Smith and another. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Spencer, Grayston & Spencer, for appellants. F. L. Williams, R. A. Mooneyham, and P. D. Decker, for respondent.

BLAIR, C. J.

Hawkins having met death in one of appellants' lead and zinc mines by reason of the negligence of a fellow servant, his widow brought this suit and recovered judgment under the Act of May 10, 1907 (sections 5440-5444, R. S. 1909), known as the "Mining Fellow-Servants Law." To reverse that judgment appellants' counsel contend that: (1) The act mentioned is unconstitutional; and (2) no cause of action survives to respondent under the facts stated.

1. It is insisted that the act under which judgment was recovered contravenes the provisions of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States and of section 30, art. 2, and section 53, art. 4, of the Constitution of Missouri.

An inspection of sections 5440-5444, R. S. 1909, discloses that the draughtsman followed closely the fellow-servant law applying to railroads, the constitutionality of which has been upheld by this court against substantially the same objections made to the act now in question (Powell v. Sherwood, 162 Mo. 605, 63 S. W. 485), and in this case, as in that, the argument is virtually confined to an effort to maintain that the classification adopted for the purposes of the law is purely arbitrary, and therefore legally indefensible.

In view of the unusual hazards incident to the labors of miners, legislation applicable to them as a class has frequently been upheld by this and other courts (Hamman v. Cen. Coal & Coke Co., 156 Mo. 232, 56 S. W. 1091; State v. Murlin, 137 Mo. 297, 38 S. W. 923; State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo. 245, 78 S. W. 569, and cases cited); and, generally speaking, we see no reason for concluding that an act abolishing the fellow-servant rule in the case of miners is any more open to the objections that it results in a denial of the equal protection of the laws and is a deprivation of property without due process of law than are the many enactments of like character relating solely to railroads and whose constitutionality has often been vindicated by the courts.

In the case of Hamman v. Cen. Coal & Coke Co., supra, this court gave full recognition to the principle that the dangers of mining are so great, unusual, and distinctive in character as to warrant legislation specially applicable to those engaged in that occupation, subjecting mine operators to greater liability than others in case of the death of a miner from actionable negligence. The act upheld in that case was not like that attacked in this; but the principle applied is amply sufficient, we think, to justify the conclusion that the fact that the act in question applies to miners only constitutes no infringement of the constitutional provisions mentioned.

In view of this and other recognitions by this court of the fact that, for the purposes of legislation, the basis of the distinction between mining and other occupations is like in character to that which supports the validity of fellow-servant legislation applicable solely to railroads, we are convinced that the Legislature possesses full power to enact similar legislation affecting miners and mine operators as a distinct class. In fact, the contrary is not seriously contended in this case.

In two respects, however, appellants assert that the Legislature has improperly exercised its power so to legislate, in that the act (1) excludes from its operation those engaged in certain duties on the surface, and (2) is applicable only to producing mines.

There is a broad distinction discernible between the hazards incident to the performance of their duties by those miners engaged in working beneath the earth's surface, and those attendant upon the doing of the work which is done upon the surface. This seems sufficiently obvious without further statement.

Previously in this paragraph attention has been called to the principle which justifies the Legislature in classifying miners and mine operators for legislative purposes, and that principle furnishes adequate support for the distinction made in the act between classes of miners engaged in duties distinctly different in character and with respect to the dangers attendant upon them.

In addition to this, it may be that appellants are not in a position to raise this question. All mine operators in a like situation with appellants fall within the purview of the act. The discrimination, if any, is against certain mine employés, and as to them mine operators are subject to no new liability. The argument being that the defect in the act consists in a failure to include all miners in a like situation with those included necessarily concedes the propriety of the legislation if all were so included. What discrimination against appellants can be asserted as arising from a failure to extend their liability further than is done? Is not the discrimination, if any, against those excluded from the benefits of the act, and, if so, on what principle can appellants complain? It is not necessary to decide this question, nor do we decide that those excluded from the terms of the act might not be included on some broader distinction than that which marks the boundaries of the class to which the act being considered applies. Since the act includes "all who are or who may come into like situations and circumstances," it is no reason for declaring it invalid that others subjected to less and different dangers are not included within the purview thereof, though they be employed by the same person or corporation and engaged in another department of the same service. The difference between the...