Keokee Consolidated Coke Company v. Taylor Keokee Consolidated Coke Company v. Kelly
| Decision Date | 08 June 1914 |
| Docket Number | 373,No. 373,Nos. 372,No. 372,372,s. 372 |
| Citation | 58 L.Ed. 1288,34 S.Ct. 856,234 U.S. 224 |
| Parties | KEOKEE CONSOLIDATED COKE COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. W. W. TAYLOR, Isaac Taylor, James Taylor, and S. T. Witt, Partners under the Firm Name of W. W. Taylor, Sons & Witt. KEOKEE CONSOLIDATED COKE COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. J. P. KELLY, A. P. Hickam, and G. E. Woliver, Partners under the Firm Name of Kelly, Hickam Company |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs, J. T. Bullitt and R. T. Irvine for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 225 intentionally omitted] Messrs. J. C. Noel and C. T. Duncan for defendants in error.
These are actions of assumpsit brought by the defendants in error upon orders signed by employees of the plaintiff in error and addressed to it, directing it to pay to bearer 'in merchandise only from your store,' to the value specified. These orders were upon scrip issued by the plaintiff in error as an advance of monthly wages in payment for labor performed, and the only controversy between the parties arises from the refusal of the plaintiff in error to pay the indicated amounts in money. The facts were agreed, the circuit court gave judgment for the plaintiffs, and a writ of error was refused by the supreme court of appeals. The ground of the judgment was an act of February 13, 1888, amending and re-enacting an act of 1887, chap. 391, § 3, forbidding any person, firm, or corporation engaged in mining coal or ore, or manufacturing iron or steel or any other kind of manufacturing, to issue for the payment of labor any order unless the same purported to be redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States. The plaintiff in error saved its rights under the 14th Amendment, and, when the court of appeals refused to hear the cases, brought them here. The writ of error was allowed on September 25, 1912. Norfolk & S. Turnp. Co. v. Virginia, 225 U. S. 264, 269, 56 L. ed. 1082, 1086, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 828.
Of course we do not go behind the construction given to the state law by the state courts. The objections that are urged here are that the statute interferes with freedom of contract, and, more especially, that it is class legislation of a kind supposed to be inconsistent with the 14th Amendment; a West Virginia decision upon a similar statute being cited to that effect. State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, 6 L.R.A. 621, 25 Am. St. Rep. 863, 10 S. E. 285. The former of these objections, however, is disposed of by Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13, 46 L. ed. 55, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1, and Dayton Coal & I. Co. v. Barton,...
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