Mutual Loan Company v. George Martell
| Decision Date | 11 December 1911 |
| Docket Number | No. 29,29 |
| Citation | 222 U.S. 225,32 S.Ct. 74,56 L.Ed. 175 |
| Parties | MUTUAL LOAN COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. GEORGE J. MARTELL |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Lee M. Friedman for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 226-231 intentionally omitted] No appearance for defendant in error.
The question in the case is the validity, under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, of a statute of the state of Massachusetts, which (§ 7) makes invalid against the employer of a person any assignment of or order for wages to be earned in the future, to secure a loan of less than $200, until the assignment or order be accepted in writing by the employer, and the assignment or order and acceptance be filed and recorded with the clerk of the city or town in the place of residence or employment, according as the person making the assignment be or be not a resident of the commonwealth. If such person be married, the written consent of his wife must be attached to the assignment or order. Section 8. National banks and banks which are under the supervision of the bank commissioner, and certain loan companies, are exempt from the provisions of the act. Section 6.
The action is in contract on two promissory notes given by two different persons, with an assignment by each of wages to be earned in the future in the defendant's service (defendant in error here, and we will so designate him, and the plaintiff in error as plaintiff). The assignments were duly recorded, but were not accepted in writing by defendant. The assignor in the second assignment was a married man whose wife did not consent to the assignment.
Judgment was entered in the superior court for the defendant, which was affirmed by the supreme judncial court of Massachusetts. 200 Mass. 482, ——L.R.A.(N.S.) ——, 128 Am. St. Rep. 446, 86 N. E. 916.
The contention of plaintiff is (1) that the provisions of §§ 7 and 8 deprive it of due process of law, and (2) that § 6 deprives it of the equal protection of the laws.
(1) To sustain this contention it is urged that the statute being an exercise of the police power of the state, its purpose must have 'some clear, real, and substantial connection' with the preservation of the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare; and it is insisted that the statute of Massachusetts has not such connection and is therefore invalid.
This court has had many occasions to define, in general terms, the police power, and to give particularity to the definitions by special applications. In Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 561, 592, 50 L. ed. 596, 609, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 341, 4 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 1175, it was said that 'the police power of a state embraces regulations designed to promote the public convenience or the general prosperity, as well as regulations designed to promote the public health, the public morals, or the public safety;' and that the validity of a police regulation 'must depend upon the circumstances of each case and the character of the regulation, whether arbitrary or reasonable, and whether really designed to accomplish a ligitimate public purpose.'
In Bacon v. Walker, 204 U. S. 311, 318, 51 L. ed. 499, 502, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 289, it was decided that the police power is not confined 'to the suppression of what is offensive, disorderly, or unsanitary,' but 'extends to so dealing with the conditions which exist in the state as to bring out of them the greatest welfare of its people.'
In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government; and a contention that a particular exercise of it offends the due process clause of the Constitution is apt to be very intangible to a precise consideration and answer. Certain general principles, however, must be taken for granted. It is certainly the province of the state, by its legislature, to adopt such policy as to it seems best. There are constitutional limitations, of course, but these allow a very comprehensive range of judgment. And within that range the Massachusetts statute can be justified. Legislation cannot be judged by theoretical standards. It must be tested by the concrete conditions which induced it; and this test was applied by the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in passing on the validity of the statute under review.
The court hesitated to say, as at least one court has said, that a total prohibition of the assignment of wages would be valid, but justified the partial restriction of the statute on the ground that the extravagance or improvidence of the wage earner might tempt to the disposition of wages to be earned, and he and his family, deprived of the means of support, might become a public charge. It was pointed out, besides, that his need might be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. The purposes of the statute are certainly assisted by the formalities which it prescribes as requisite to the validity of an assignment. The requirement that it (the assignment) be accepted in writing by the employer, it was pointed out, protects him and secures the assignment from dispute; and the requirement that the acceptance and the assignment be recorded checks an attempt of the wage earner to procure a dishonest credit.
The court found more difficulty with the provision which requires the consent of the wage earner's wife to the assignment, but justified it on the general considerations we have mentioned, and on the ground of her interest in the right use of his wages, though she have no legal title in them.
We cannot say, therefore, that the statute as a police regulation is...
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