Pond Creek Pocahontas Co. v. Alexander

• Decision Date: 03 March 1953
• Docket Number: No. 10537,10537
• Citation: 74 S.E.2d 590,137 W.Va. 864
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: POND CREEK POCAHONTAS CO. et al. v. ALEXANDER et al.

Page 590

74 S.E.2d 590

137 W.Va. 864

POND CREEK POCAHONTAS CO. et al. v. ALEXANDER et al.

No. 10537.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted Feb. 17, 1953.

Decided March 3, 1953.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The basic and cardinal principle, governing the interpretation and application of a statute, is that the Court should ascertain the intent of the Legislature at the time the statute was enacted, and in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time of the enactment.

2. Where the meaning of a statute is clear and its provisions are unambiguous, this Court will not undertake to construe and interpret it, but will apply the statute as its exact terms require.

3. In ascertaining the legislative intent in the enactment of a statute, its terms should not be literally applied so as to thwart the evident intent of the Legislature.

4. In ascertaining the intent of the Legislature in the enactment of a statute and determining whether it is unambiguous, the grammatical construction, while not controlling, is an important aid.

5. "A statute is to be interpreted in the light of the nature of its subject matter, the purpose of the legislature in passing it, and the conditions and circumstances under which the law making body must have known it would operate; and, upon these considerations, it will not be so interpreted as to make it impose unreasonable burdens, greatly disproportionate to the resultant public benefit, unless its terms are so explicit and positive as to preclude any other construction." State v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 61 W.Va. 367, Pt. 2, Syl. .

6. Chapter 10, Section 18, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1915, reenacted by Chapter 88, Section 13(h), Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1925, and incorporated in the Official Code of 1931, in Chapter 22, Article 2, Section 10, evidences the legislative intent to prohibit the use of petroleum for motive power in the underground mines of this State as being inherently dangerous and deleterious to the miners working therein.

7. Code, 22-2-10, is clear and unambiguous, and should be applied so as to prohibit the use of petroleum as motive power in the underground mines of this State.

8. Code, 22-2-10, was enacted in the valid exercise of the police power of the State, which is inherent in the States of the Union, and was enacted with the evident purpose of protecting the health and safety of those engaged in mining in the underground mines of this State.

9. Code, 22-2-10, which prohibits the use of products of petroleum as motive power in underground mines in this State is not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or the due process clause contained in Article III, Section 10, West Virginia Constitution.

Campbell, McNeer & Woods, Charles F. Bagley, Jr., and F.A. Macdonald, Huntington, Rose, Rose & Houston, Don Rose and Harold R. Schmidt, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellants.

John G. Fox, Atty.Gen., and George W. Stokes, Asst.Atty.Gen., for appellees.

RILEY, Judge.

Pond Creek Pocahontas Company, a corporation, and National Mine Service Company, a corporation, instituted this proceeding in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, against Arch J. Alexander, individually and as Chief of the Department of Mines of the State of West Virginia, Joseph J. Bierer, Acting Chief of the Department of Mines, E.L. Chatfield, inspector at large of the Department of Mines, and Elmer Farmer, mine inspector of the Department of Mines, for a declaratory judgment construing Section 18, Chapter 10, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1915, as reenacted by Section 13(h), Chapter 88, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1925, incorporated in the Official Code of West Virginia, 1931, as Chapter 22, Article 2, Section 10. The circuit court, having sustained a demurrer to the petition of Pond Creek Pocahontas Company and National Mine Service Company filed in that court, and by final decree having dismissed the petition, the petitioners prosecute their appeal in this Court.

The petitioner, Pond Creek Pocahontas Company, a mining company operating coal mines in McDowell County, West Virginia, and in Kentucky, purchased from its co-petitioner, National Mine Service Company, a manufacturer of mine equipment, having a place of business in Beckley, West Virginia, a ten-ton diesel haulage locomotive, designed for haulage purposes in the main haulways of the coal company's mine No. 6, near Bradshaw in McDowell County, powered by a product of petroleum. The use of this locomotive was approved by the Bureau of Mines of the United States Department of the Interior, subject to strict regulations and inhibitions contained and prescribed in Schedule 22, issued by that bureau. Following such approval, the Honorable Arch J. Alexander, then Chief of the Department of Mines of West Virginia, approved the use of the locomotive in the coal company's mine No. 6, located in McDowell County. Thereafter, by letter dated August 27, 1951, the Attorney General of this State, through the Honorable George W. Stokes, an Assistant Attorney General, advised the Chief of the Department of Mines that the use of the diesel locomotive contemplated by the coal company, violated Code, 22-2-10, in that it was proposed to be operated by the use of a product of petroleum. Alexander, by letter dated January 8, 1952, addressed to petitioner coal company at its office at Huntington, informed petitioner that he had personally examined and tested the locomotive at its location at mine No. 6, and, as a result of that examination, he was of opinion that the locomotive would not endanger the health or safety of miners working in petitioner's mine, and would not contaminate the air to such extent as to be injurious to the health of any miner working therein. He further stated that Elmer Farmer, mine inspector for the district in which petitioner's mines are located, and John Petty, electrical inspector, who were present at the time the examination and testing were done, joined in the mine department's opinion. This letter further informed petitioner coal company as follows:

"Accordingly, I not only refuse to approve the use of your locomotive, and others similar thereto, in your mines, when using as fuel a product of petroleum, but I hereby cancel and withdraw the approval which I have heretofore given you; and I am further compelled to advise you that if you use such locomotive so powered in any of your mines in this state, I will invoke and enforce against you the applicable provisions of the West Virginia Mine Laws and will cause to be closed the mine or mines in which the locomotive or others similar thereto may be so used, notwithstanding that I am of the opinion that the use of such locomotive so powered will not render the operation of your mine unsafe and will not contaminate the air in any such mine to such an extent as to be injurious to the health of any miner therein."

From the prayer of the petition it appears that the petitioners seek a declaratory judgment declaring: (1) That Section 10, Article 2, of Chapter 22, Code, 1931, does not prohibit the operation of the locomotive involved, and others similar thereto, in the underground mines of the petitioner coal company, where fueled by a product of petroleum "where the inspector is of the opinion that such use will not contaminate the air to such an extent as to be injurious to the health of the miner and is otherwise safe"; and (2) that, in so far as the statute prohibits absolutely and unconditionally the use of products of petroleum as fuel for underground locomotives in Pond Creek Pocahontas Company's mines, or in other underground mines in West Virginia, where such use is safe and reasonable, Section 10, Article 2, Chapter 22, Code, 1931, is unconstitutional and void as being in contravention of Section 10, Article III, West Virginia Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Section 18, Chapter 10, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1915, (now Code, 22-2-10), which was interpreted adversely to the petitioners by the circuit court, and is now before this Court for appraisal and consideration, reads: "No product of petroleum, or alcohol, or any compound that in the opinion of the inspector will contaminate the air to such an extent as to be injurious to the health of the miner shall be used as motive power in any mine."

The errors assigned in this Court are: (1) The trial court erred in sustaining defendants' demurrer to plaintiff's petition for a declaratory judgment; (2) the trial court erred in decreeing and declaring that the statute under appraisement unconditionally prohibits the use of diesel locomotives fueled by a product of petroleum as motive power in any coal mine in this State; (3) the trial court erred in decreeing and declaring that under the statute the Department of Mines of West Virginia has no authority to determine whether the use of a diesel locomotive fueled by a product of petroleum as motive power in any coal mine in this State will contaminate the mine to such extent as to be injurious to the health of the miners working therein; and (4) the court erred in decreeing and declaring that the statute under appraisement if construed as invoking an unconditional prohibition of the use of diesel locomotives, fueled by a product of petroleum as motive power in any coal mine in this State, is a reasonable exercise of...