Millett v. People

• Decision Date: 12 June 1886
• Citation: 7 N.E. 631,117 Ill. 294
• Parties: MILLETT v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

117 Ill. 294

7 N.E. 631

MILLETT

v.PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 12, 1886.

Appeal from St. Clair.

Wilderman & Hamill

, for appellant.

Geo. Hunt, Atty. Gen., and R. D. W. Holden, State's Atty., for the people.

SCHOLFIELD, J.

The defendant was indicted and convicted of failing, as the agent of the owner of a certain coal mine, to cause to be furnished and placed upon the railroad track, adjacent to the coal mine, a trackscale of standard measure, upon which to weight the coal hoisted from the mine, as provided by section 1 of ‘An act to provide for the weighing of coal at the mine,’ approved June 14, 1883, and the several sections of the act to amend sections 2, 3, and 4 of that act, approved June 29, 1885.

We held in Jones v. People, 110 Ill. 590, that it was competent to show, in defense of a person indicted under the same section, before the approval of the amendatory act of June 29, 1885, that at the time the act took effect, and long prior thereto, the corporation in that case owning and operating the coal mine had a contract will all the men employed to mine coal in that mine, during that period to receive, as the wages for their labor, from said coal company, the sum of 40 cents per box for each box of coal mined and taken from said mine; that all the persons employed in the mine to mine coal for said company had always been and were then perfectly satisfied to work under said contract; and that they did not want the coal taken from the mine weighed as a basis upon which to compute their wages, etc. It was, in considering this question, among other things, then said:

‘Although section 2 does provide that the weight determined by weighing on the scales furnished shall be considered the basis upon which the wages of persons mining coal shall be computed, we do not regard this as requiring that in all contracts for the mining of coal the wages of the miners must be computed upon the basis of the weight of the coal mined. That would be a quite arbitrary provision,-seemingly an undue interference with men's rights of making contracts,-and we cannot ascribe to the legislature the making of such an enactment unless it be plainly declared, which is not done in this case.’

The second section of the amendatory act, approved June 29, 1885, requires that all coal produced in this state shall be weighed on the scales, as provided in section 1 of the act approved June 14, 1883, and that a correct record of the same shall be kept, in a well-bound book furnished by the owner, agent, or operator of such mine for that purpose, by a competent person, at the expense of such owner, agent, or operator; said record to be subject to the inspection (at all reasonable business hours) of the miner, operator, carrier, land-owner, adjacent land-owner, member of the bureau of labor statistics, mine inspectors, and all others interested. Section 3 provides that it shall be lawful for the miners employed in any coal mine or colliery in this state to furnish a check-weigher at their own expense, whose duty it shall be to balance said scales, and see that the coal is properly weighed, and keep a correct account of the same, and for this purpose he shall have access, at all times, to the beam-box of said scales while such weighing is being performed. The fourth section provides that a fine, or fine and imprisonment, as prescribed, shall be enforced on any owner or agent operating a coal mine failing to comply with these provisions. And another section provides that all contracts for the mining of coal in which the weighing of the coal as provided for in that act shall be dispensed with, shall be null and void.

The court, at the instance of the people, instructed the jury that since the first day of July, 1885, the law prohibits the making of any contracts between the operators of the coal mines and the miners in which the weighing of coal as provided by law is sought to be avoided, and the court refused to instruct the jury that ‘if they believed from the evidence that the company for which the defendant is working does not sell nor offer to sell coal by weight at its mine at which defendant is employed, and that it has contracts with all the men employed in its mine to mine coal at 25 or 20 cents per box, then the jury should find the defendant not guilty.’ There was evidence before the jury on which to predicate this instruction.

The question is thus presented whither it is competent for the general assembly to single out owners and operators of coal-mines, as a distinct class, and provide that they shall bear burdens not imposed on other owners of property or employers of laborers, and prohibit them from making contracts which it is competent for other owners of property or employers of laborers to make.

It is declared in section 2, art. 2, of our constitution, that ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.’ And section 13 of the same article provides that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. The words ‘due process of law,’ in this connection, are held to be synonymous with the words, ‘the law of the land,’-Cooley, Const. Lim. (1st Ed.) pp. 352, 353;-and this means general public law, binding upon all the members of the community, under all circumstances, and not partial or private laws affecting the rights of private individuals, or classes of individuals. Janes v. Reynolds, 2 Tex. 251. See, also, Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 432;Vanzant v. Waddel, 2 Yerg. 269. ‘Every one,’ says Cooley,-Const. Lim. (1st Ed.) p. 391,-'has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules; and a special statute that singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in all similar cases would not be legitimate legislation, but an arbitrary mandate, unrecognized in free government. Mr. Locke has said of those who make the laws: ‘They are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough;’ and this may justly be said to have become a maxim in the law by which may be tested the authority and binding force of legislative enactments.'

And, again, the same authority says, (page 393:) ‘The doubt might also arise whether a regulation made for any one class of citizens, entirely arbitrary in its character, and restricting their rights, privileges, or legal capacities in manner before unknown to the law, could be sustained. Distinctions in these respects should be based upon some reason which renders them important,-like the want of capacity in infants and insane persons; but if the legislature should undertake to provide that persons following some specified lawful trade or employments should not have...