Jahn v. City of Seattle

• Decision Date: 13 June 1922
• Docket Number: 17248.
• Citation: 120 Wash. 403,207 P. 667
• Parties: JAHN et al. v. CITY OF SEATTLE.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

207 P. 667

120 Wash. 403

JAHN et al. v. CITY OF SEATTLE.

No. 17248.

Supreme Court of Washington

June 13, 1922

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; A. W. Frater, Judge.

Suit by N. F. Jahn and others against the City of Seattle for injunction. Demurrer to complaint sustained, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Parker C.J., dissenting.

Flick & Paul and Raymond G. Wright, all of Seattle, for appellants.

Walter F. Meier, Geo. A. Meagher, and Charles T. Donworth, all of Seattle, for respondent.

MACKINTOSH J.

Appellants are contractors engaged in the performance of contracts for the city of Seattle on local improvement work, and they allege in their complaint against the city that they estimated their costs on the basis of $3.50 per day for common labor to be employed by them, and that at the time of the execution of the contracts there was in effect a charter provision of the city of Seattle, section 2 of which reads as follows:

' Minimum Wage to be Paid on Local on Other Improvement Work.--Every contractor and subcontractor performing any local or other improvement work for the city of Seattle shall pay or cause to be paid to his employees on such work or under such contract not less than the current rate of wages paid by the city of Seattle for work of like character, and in any event not less than two and seventy-five hundredths dollars ($2.75) per day. Such contractor and subcontractor shall, on such work or under such contract, give preference to citizens of the United States who are heads of families. This article shall be enforced by the city council by ordinance. In case any provision of this section shall be held illegal and void the same shall not affect any other provision of this section.'

At the same time there existed an ordinance (No. 38415) in the following words:

'An Ordinance Relating to Contractors and Subcontractors Performing Work for the City of Seattle, to Employees Thereof, and to the Wages Paid Such Employees, Providing Penalties for the Violation of This Ordinance, and Repealing all Ordinances or Parts Thereof in Conflict Therewith.

'Be it ordained by the city of Seattle as follows:

'Section 1. Every contractor or subcontractor performing any local or other improvement work for the city of Seattle, shall pay or cause to be paid to his employees on such work or under such contract not less than the current or prevailing wage paid by the city of Seattle for work of like character. 'Sec. 2. Such contractor or subcontractor shall on such work or under such contract give preference to citizens of the United States who are heads of families.

'Sec. 3. Any contractor or subcontractor who shall violate any of the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred (100) dollars, or imprisoned in the city jail for a term not exceeding thirty (30) days, or may be both fined and imprisoned.

'Sec. 4. All ordinances or parts thereof in so far as the same may be in conflict herewith, are repealed.'

The city of Seattle had no ordinances fixing the wages of laborers employed by it, other than Ordinances Nos. 41689 and 42219, which were general salary ordinances of the various departments of the city, and which, so far as we are here concerned, provided that, for common labor employed in the different departments, the heads of those departments should fix the amount of the wages, provided they did not exceed $4.75 per day for employees just entering the city's service, and $5.25 for those who had been in such service 90 days or more.

The complaint alleges that the charter provision and Ordinances Nos. 38415, 41689, and 42219 are unconstitutional and void and further alleges that, during the year 1921, certain departments of the city of Seattle paid $4.75 per day for common labor, and, by reason of the fact that the plaintiffs had been paying less than that amount, they were being arrested by the defendant, and that the defendant was threatening to make further arrests, which, if done, would irreparably injure the plaintiffs; further, that $4.75 is an unreasonable and unwarranted amount to be paid and an injunction was sought against the city to prevent its prosecuting any criminal action against the plaintiffs for failure to pay the rate of $4.75 per day. To this complaint a demurrer was interposed, which was sustained, whereupon the plaintiffs appealed.

The briefs in this case have taken a wide range, but the fact is that the issue presented by the demurrer to the complaint is a very narrow one, and one which had already been determined by the decisions of this court. The question of the constitutionality of state statutes and city charter and ordinance provisions in regard to hours of labor, employment of aliens, and minimum wages upon municipal work has been passed upon many times, and the rule has been established that such provisions are constitutional, for the reason, as stated by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207, 24 S.Ct. 124, 48 L.Ed. 148, that:

'It belongs to the state, as the guardian and trustee for its people, and having control of its affairs, to prescribe the conditions upon which it will permit public work to be done on its behalf, or on behalf of its municipalities. No court has authority to review its action in that respect. Regulations on this subject suggest only considerations of public policy. And with such considerations the courts have no concern.'

In other words, the state and the various municipalities within it have the right to say that public work shall be done in any manner, at any price, and upon any terms which they see fit to lay down. It is in the power of the state and of its subsidiary municipalities to say that public work shall not be done, or that it may be done, and in the latter case it can prescribe the terms and conditions upon which it will allow it to be proceeded with. These are matters which the people have the right to determine for themselves, without interference by the courts, after they have spoken their will, as here, by the adoption of a charter and the passage of ordinances by their legislative representatives. The courts no more will attempt to say what wages must be paid upon public work, what hours of employment shall prevail, or the class of people who shall perform that work, than they will attempt to interfere and prescribe the material to go into the work, the manner of construction, or other engineering details of a public improvement. This we have said in the case of Malette v. Spokane, 77 Wash. 205, 137 P. 496, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 686, Ann. Cas 1915D, 225, where...