Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co.

Citation151 A. 518,112 Conn. 129
PartiesPREVESLIN v. DERBY & ANSONIA DEVELOPING CO.
Decision Date03 October 1930
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut

Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; Newell Jennings, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Law by Isadore Preveslin, claimant, opposed by the Derby & Ansonia Developing Company, employer. The compensation commissioner made a finding and award for the claimant, and the superior court affirmed the award, except as to its amount, and reserved certain questions for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors.

Questions answered.

George E. Beers, William L. Beers, and Louis Sperandeo, all of New Haven, for appellant.

Patrick B. O'Sullivan and William F. Healey, both of Derby, for appellee.

Ernest L. Averill, of Branford, and Benjamin W. Alling, Atty. Gen amici curiæ.

Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS JJ.

WHEELER, C.J.

We think the subordinate facts fully support the conclusions reached by the commissioner: The defendant was the principal employer in the erection of certain houses and as such procured through its agent Ratnor certain work to be done in the construction of these houses which was a part of process in the trade or business of this employer and the defendant at all times retained the premises under its control. The plaintiff-claimant while at work on one of these houses sustained a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. His injury arose, the commissioner held, under such circumstances as to make the defendant and its officers and directors individually and jointly and severally liable to the claimant for the results of the injury. The commissioner adjudged that the respondent pay the plaintiff $21 a week, " until it shall be shown that the incapacity which the claimant now experiences because of the aforesaid injury was injury was increased, decreased or ceased, but not for longer than the statutory period of 520 weeks," together with such additional hospital and kindred bills as shall be necessary as a result of this injury. The commissioner determined the award under the rate of compensation provided by chapter 307 of the Public Acts of 1927.

The trial court affirmed the award except as to its amount, and as to this reserved the questions arising on reasons of appeal 13 to 16, inclusive, for our advice.

Reason 13 is as follows: " The commissioner erred in determining the rate of compensation provided in that he applied the provisions of an unconstitutional act, to wit, the Public Acts of 1927, chapter 307, being an act not approved within the time required by the Constitution of this state and in particular by section 12 of the Fourth article thereof, and failing to apply the rule of the constitutional statute, viz., the act of 1919."

The session of 1927 of the General Assembly ended May 6th, and chapter 307 was approved by the Governor on June 8th following. The constitutional provision, section 12, article 4, providing for the approval by the Governor of an act passed by the General Assembly after its adjournment, we quote in the opinion in State v. McCook, 109 Conn. at page 641, 147 A. 126, 132, 64 A.L.R. 1453. We there held that acts approved by the Governor after the expiration of " three days, Sundays excepted" from the adjournment of the General Assembly are void. We used the word void in the sense that such acts are of no legal effect, and not in the sense that they are voidable. There would be no occasion to reconsider the holding in that case were it not that the Attorney General, as amicus curiæ in the performance of his duty, discusses in brief and argument certain features involved in the decision of this constitutional question which he says appear not to have been discussed in the former argument of the McCook Case.

The chief feature of his argument is his claim that the Governor under this article of the Constitution is given authority to approve bills which the adjournment of the General Assembly has prevented him from returning to it, whenever these bills are presented to him. In the McCook Case we say: " If he [the Governor] can sign one bill on the last secular day preceding the next General Assembly, he can on that day sign all bills returned to him on the final adjournment of the General Assembly. That situation would be intolerable." The construction accorded this provision of the Constitution in that case, obviously, was largely influenced by the grave public abuse which might follow " the possession and use of this extraordinary power" by a Governor. That might be used to defeat good laws as well as to promote those which are bad. Whatever the purpose the people would not know what these laws were. " It is of the first importance that the people should know to what law they are subject." State ex rel. Corbett v. South Norwalk, 77 Conn. 257, 263, 58 A. 759, 760.

Since our decision in the McCook Case the presentation plan of construction has been supported by discussion in apparent disregard of the fact that the adoption of that construction without a definite limitation as to the time of presentation inevitably leads to the according of an unlimited period for presentation, measured only by the beginning of the next session of the General Assembly, although the argument at the beginning of the discussion strongly controverted and discarded with finality the theory of an unlimited period of presentation, presumably for the reason assigned in the McCook Case that it would invite " an intolerable situation."

The Attorney General with better logic frankly concedes that the presentation to the Governor may be made at any time after the adjournment of the General Assembly, and even up to the beginning of its next session. Under no other construction of this constitutional provision which has been presented to us in this case, or in the McCook Case, could the approval of a bill by the Governor, nineteen days after adjournment, be upheld as within article 4 of our Constitution. The legislative understanding, long maintained, conflicts with the position of the Attorney General. Section 42 of the General Statutes provides that all bills which have been passed by both houses, but which shall not have been engrossed prior to final adjournment of the General Assembly, shall be transmitted to the Governor for his approval, and the secretary shall then engross the bills, and the engrossed bills shall then be signed by the proper officers, including the Governor. The statute further provides that these bills after their approval shall have the same validity as other statutes. This provision clearly indicates that these bills become laws when signed and approved by the Governor and before they are engrossed. The act does not specify a definite time for their signing. The declaration of the legislative procedure and purpose is the recognition of the constitutional fact that section 12 of article 4 of the Constitution prohibits the presentation to, or approval or disapproval of a bill by, the Governor after the adjournment of the General Assembly and the expiration of the three-day period at any time up to the beginning of its next session. It is an expression of their understanding as to bills passed, but not engrossed, before final adjournment that the original bills must be transmitted to the Governor for his approval, which must be manifested prior to their being transmitted to the secretary and thereafter engrossed.

For nearly one hundred years the General Assembly has determined the date when its acts should take effect, fixing this time at the rising of the General Assembly, or a designated number of weeks thereafter, or on a specified date, in no instance exceeding three months from its rising. From 1877, section 42 of the General Statutes, in practically its present form, has required that acts not returned by the Governor to the General Assembly because it had prevented their return by its adjournment must within this period have been presented to the Governor, considered, and, if approved by him, subsequently engrossed and the copy thereof duly indorsed, and the acts have thereupon been printed in book form. It is manifest that the General Assembly must have understood that the Governor must approve of the acts shortly after the rising of the General Assembly, and that the presentation to the Governor could not be deferred for the period claimed by the Attorney General, extending up to the session of the next General Assembly.

In the forty-four sessions of the General Assembly just prior to 1919-a period covering sixty years-in only four were a few bills signed and approved by the Governor after the expiration of the " three days. Sundays excepted," succeeding the adjournment of the General Assembly. This plainly shows the executive usage and refutes the theory of the Attorney General. Up to 1919 the legislative purpose and the executive purpose were in harmony. Since that period the legislative purpose continues while the executive purpose as indicated by the course of official conduct has departed from the constitutional and executive usage of the period prior to 1919, and from the legislative usage which has held, unchanging, to the present.

We are assured by the Attorney General that it has not been in recent years the practice for the Governor to sign the original bills which the adjournment of the General Assembly has prevented him from returning, and that the presentation of these bills to him has been deferred, as a practice, for the purpose of first procuring their engrossment. The McCook Case concerned an Act passed in 1925. Of the Public Acts of that session 74 were signed by the Governor nineteen days after, and 38, twenty days after the...

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42 cases
  • Gilbert v. Gladden
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)
    • July 29, 1981
    ...after sine die adjournment of legislature must be presented within a reasonable time); accord, Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., 112 Conn. 129, 151 A. 518, 521 (1930); contra, City of Rye v. Ronan, 67 Misc.2d 972, 976, 325 N.Y.S.2d 548, 552 (Sup.Ct.1971), aff'd, 40 App.Div. 950, ......
  • State v. Clemente
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • July 2, 1974
    ...... and judicial function is often hard to definitely ascertain'; Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., 112 Conn. 129, 145, 151 A. 518, 523; ......
  • Sheff v. O'Neill, 15255
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • July 9, 1996
    ...86 L.Ed.2d 557 (1985); Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615, 625, 649-50, 376 A.2d 359 (1977) (Horton I ); Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., 112 Conn. 129, 145, 151 A. 518 (1930). "Deciding whether a matter has in any measure been committed by the Constitution to another branch of go......
  • Caldor, Inc. v. Thornton
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • September 6, 1983
    ...Whether a statute is in conflict with the state constitution is the duty of the judiciary to determine. Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Developing Co., 112 Conn. 129, 145, 151 A. 518 (1930). Indeed, lower courts of limited jurisdiction have been advised to leave the question of constitutionali......
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