McLean v. State

• Decision Date: 10 December 1906
• Parties: McLEAN v. STATE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

98 S.W. 729

McLEAN v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

December 10, 1906.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sebastian County; Styles T. Rowe, Judge.

John McLean was prosecuted for violating Laws 1905, p. 558, forbidding the screening of coal before being weighed. From a conviction, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Ira D. Oglesby, for appellant. Robt. L. Rogers, Atty. Gen., for the State.

WOOD, J.

This appeal questions the constitutionality of the following statute: "It shall be unlawful for any mine owner, lessee, or operator of coal mines in this state, where ten or more men are employed underground, employing miners at bushel or ton rates, or other quantity, to pass the output of coal mined by said miners over any screen or any other device which shall take any part from the value thereof before the same shall have been weighed and duly credited to the employé sending the same to the surface, and accounted for at the legal rate of weights as fixed by the laws of Arkansas, and no employé within the meaning of this act shall be deemed to have waived any right accruing to him under this section by any contract he may make contrary to the provisions thereof, and any provisions, contract, or agreement between mine owners, lessees or operators thereof, and the miners employed therein, whereby the provisions of this act are waived, modified or annulled, shall be void and of no effect, and the coal sent to the surface shall be accepted or rejected; and if accepted, shall be weighed in accordance with the provisions of this act, and right of action shall not be invalidated by reason of any contract or agreement; and any owner, agent, lessee, or operator of any coal mine in this State where ten or more men are employed underground who shall knowingly violate any of the provisions of this section, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than two hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars for each offense, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not less than sixty days nor more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment; and each day any mine or mines are operated thereafter shall be a separate and distinct offense; proceedings to be instituted in any court having competent jurisdiction." Acts 1905, p. 558. This legislation is clearly within the scope of the police power. The manifest purpose of the statute is to prevent those who operate coal mines from perpetrating fraud upon laborers whom they have employed to mine coal by the quantity. It will be observed that the act does not interfere with the right of the operator to contract with the miners in his employ for the mining of coal by the hour or day, or in any other manner, regardless of quantity, that he deems proper. He is not compelled to have his coal mined and pay for same according to the quantity produced. But, if he elects to employ miners to mine coal and to pay for same according to the quantity produced, then the purpose of this law is to secure the laborer against the use by him of any screen or other device "that shall take any part from the value thereof before the same shall have been weighed and duly credited to the employé" producing same. Under the provisions of the statute the operator who has contracted to have his coal mined by the quantity is not required to accept the coal sent to the surface by the miners. The coal "shall be accepted or rejected." But, "if accepted," then it "shall be weighed in accordance with the provisions of the act." The plain purpose of the act, therefore, is not to prevent the parties from contracting in any manner they deem proper for the production of coal, but rather, after they have contracted for its production according to the quantity produced, to see that such quantity is ascertained by a fixed and definite standard by which neither of the parties can be defrauded. In other words, under this statute, the miner, having contracted with the mine owner or operator to produce a bushel, ton, or any other quantity of coal, at a certain price for the quantity produced, is entitled to have such quantity ascertained by the legal rate or system of weights adopted by the state of Arkansas, and that, too, without having the output or quantity of coal mined passed over any screen or other device which would take any part from the value thereof — i. e., which would reduce, as ascertained by the weight, the quantity of coal which he had actually mined under his contract. It is certainly within the police power of the state to adopt a uniform system of weights and measures and to require that all persons, whose business transactions require the use of same, conform thereto. Chapter 159, Kirby's Digest; Blaker v. Hood, 53 Kan. 599, 36 Pac. 115, 24 L. R. A. 854; State v. Wilson, 61 Kan. 34, 58 Pac. 981, 47 L. R. A. 71; State v. Peel Flint Coal Co., 36 W. Va. 802, 15 S. E. 1000, 17 L. R. A. 385; Freund on Police Power, §§ 272, 275. The purpose of these statutes as applicable to coal mines is, as said by Mr. Snyder, "to furnish a reliable means upon which to base the miner's compensation and protect him in the payment for all the coal he mines." He therefore, "not only has the right to have it justly and honestly weighed in the original form in which he loaded it, but he has the right also to have a true record kept of it." 2 Snyder on Mines, § 1675. The operators are prohibited from using screens or other device "which shall take any part from the value thereof." The words quoted show the intent of the Legislature to protect the miner from the use of any device by his employer that will enable such employer to deprive the miner of the value of his labor on...