Overland Cotton Mill Co. v. People

• Decision Date: 07 March 1904
• Parties: OVERLAND COTTON MILL CO. et al. v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

75 P. 924

32 Colo. 263

OVERLAND COTTON MILL CO. et al. v. PEOPLE.

Supreme Court of Colorado

March 7, 1904

Error to County Court, City and County of Denver; Ben. B. Lindsey Judge.

The Overland Cotton Mill Company and others were convicted of employing a child under 14 years of age in a mill, and bring error. Affirmed as to defendant Overland Cotton Mill Company and another, and abated as to defendant John L. Jerome.

Thos. H. Hood, for plaintiffs in error.

N. C Miller, Atty. Gen., and J. B. Melville, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants in error.

GABBERT, J.

Each of plaintiffs in error was found guilty of violating the provisions of section 413, 1 Mills' Ann. St. This section provides, in substance, that any person who shall hire and employ a child under 14 years of age in any mill or factory shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The affidavit supporting the information charged that the Overland Cotton Mill Company, John L. Jerome, as its treasurer, and Dean Sutcliffe, as its superintendent, had violated this statute by employing a boy under 14 years of age in the mill belonging to the company.

Since the cause was brought here, plaintiff in error Jerome has died. The purpose of enforcing a penal statute is to punish the person found guilty of violating its provisions. The representatives of deceased are not responsible for the alleged violation of the statute by him during his lifetime. They cannot be required to satisfy the judgment rendered against him. It is only the person adjudged guilty who can be punished, and a judgment cannot be enforced when the only subject-matter upon which it can operate has ceased to exist. As to the deceased, the proceedings are abated by operation of law. O'Sullivan v. People, 144 Ill. 604, 32 N.E. 192 20 L.R.A. 143; Town of Carrollton v. Rhomberg, 78 Mo. 547; March v. State, 5 Tex. App. 450; Herrington v. State, 53 Ga 552; U.S. v. De Goer (D. C.) 38 F. 80; Schreiber v. Sharpless, 110 U.S. 76, 3 S.Ct. 423, 28 L.Ed. 65.

During the progress of the trial it developed from the testimony that the party who made the affidavit supporting the information did not have personal knowledge that the defendants had committed the offense charged. Thereupon they moved to quash the information. This motion was denied. There was no error in this ruling. Whether or not an affidavit to support an information states the facts required by the statute must be determined from the affidavit itself. Its statements cannot be attacked by extraneous evidence, or upon the ground that the testimony may disclose that the party who verified it did not have the knowledge relative to the offense charged which the statute requires. Bergdahl v. People, 27 Colo. 302, 61 P. 228; Holt v. People, 23 Colo. 1, 45 P. 374:

The Overland Cotton Mill Company is a corporation organized under the laws of this state, and it is argued that, because the statute only says that 'any person' who shall employ children under the age of 14 years in any mill or factory shall be deemed guilty of violating its provisions, therefore a corporation, in its capacity as such, cannot be reached in a prosecution of this character--in other words, because the statute does not specify corporations, that they are exempted from the statutory provision on the subject of the employment of children under the age of 14 years. In support of this contention, attention is directed to the provision that the officer to whom a warrant is issued against the person charged with violating the statute shall bring that person into court, and that such person, if found guilty, shall be committed to jail if the fine imposed is not paid; that other provisions in the chapter relating to children, in which the section under consideration appears, expressly include corporations; that a corporation cannot be imprisoned; and that the act can be amply enforced by proceeding against the employés of corporations who violate it. These matters may be taken into consideration in ascertaining whether or not corporations are included, but they are not conclusive, nor do they furnish the true test in determining whether or not the word 'person,' as employed in the statute embraces a corporation. In the earlier cases, and before corporations had become such important factors in industrial affairs, it was held that, as statutes imposing a penalty were to be strictly construed, they did not apply to corporations, unless they included them in express terms or by clear implication. This view is no longer entertained by the modern decisions, either in England or this country, for various reasons, among which may be noticed that it ignored the principle that statutes are to be applied to corporations, when they can be, the same as to natural persons; that, so far as their nature will permit, they are amenable to the laws of the land, the same as individuals; and that to exempt them from the operation of a statute would result in conferring upon them rights which natural persons were not permitted to enjoy. 10 Cyc. 1208. Prima facie, the word 'person,' in a penal statute which is intended to inhibit an act, means 'person in law' (that is, an artificial as well as a natural person), and therefore includes corporations, if they are within the spirit and purpose of the statute. The Pharmaceutical Ass'n v. The London & P. S. A., Limited, 5 Appeal Cases (Law Reports), 857; 7 Enc. of Law (2d Ed.) 841; 1 Clark & Marshall's Private Corp. § 252; Bishpo's Stat. Crimes (3d Ed.) § 212; Stewart v. The Waterloo Turn Verein, 71 Iowa 226, 32 N.W. 275, 60 Am.Rep. 786. Whether corporations are included within the statute depends largely upon its object. Pharmaceutical Ass'n v. London & P. S. A., Limited, supra. The purpose of the statute, as indicated by its title, was to prohibit the employment of children under 14 years of age in certain kinds of work. It is common knowledge that the places which, by the statute, children under the age of 14 years are inhibited from working...