Heebner v. Chave

• Citation: 5 Pa. 115
• Parties: HEEBNER <I>v.</I> CHAVE et al.
• Decision Date: 25 March 1847
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

5 Pa. 115

HEEBNER v. CHAVE et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

March 25, 1847.

March 25.

IN error from the Common Pleas of Montgomery county.

Powell, for the plaintiff in error.—The word wages may, it is true, be applied to every species of return for labour, whether mental or physical, but it is plain, that in this act it is used in a more confined sense. In Ex parte Meason, 5 Binn. 167, the term "servants" in the act, giving a preference to servants' wages, was held to be confined to the domestic or menial servants, and not to include workmen employed at a furnace. So the master of a vessel has no lien for his pay, because it is not wages; Fisher v. Willing, 8 Serg. & Rawle, 118, and Holt on Ship. 288. Certainly the legislature did not intend to exclude the money due the extensive contractors on railroads, which amounts often to thousands of dollars. (On the regularity of the process the court declined hearing argument.)

Boyd, contrà.—In Jacob's Law Dig. tit. Wages, they are defined to be what is received by servants; and in 8 East, 113, is a case identical with the present, and the price agreed to be paid for ditching to one who had hired another to assist him in the work, was held to be recoverable as wages under a statute giving jurisdiction to justices in such cases. Besides, here it will be impossible to distinguish between the product of the personal labour of the contractor and that of his employees.

COULTER, J.

On the first point submitted to the court below, their opinion was right, and in accordance with the view of the case entertained by this court. On the second point they were wrong. It arises on the construction of the fifth section of the act of 15th of April, 1845, entitled a supplement to an act entitled an act relating to executions, &c., Purd. Dig. (ed. 1846,) 705, the proviso of which prevents the wages of any labourers from being liable to attachment in the hands of the employer.

In this case, John Chave entered into a contract with the burgesses and council of the borough of Norristown, for grading and excavating a street in the said borough, for the price of twenty cents for every cubic yard, to be paid one-half as the work progresses, and the other half when it was finished. The force employed was, two carts, two or three horses, and enough of hands, with himself, to keep these in exercise; a certain portion was earned at the time of the service of the attachment, the whole contract amounting to about $110. Was...