Sorenson v. Webb

• Decision Date: 27 March 1916
• Docket Number: 17341
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: SORENSON v. WEBB

71 So. 273

111 Miss. 87

SORENSON v. WEBB

No. 17341

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 27, 1916

APPEAL from the circuit court of Rankin county, HON. C. L. DOBBS Judge.

Suit by B. W. Webb against C. Sorenson. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed in part, and affirmed in part.

Stingily & McIntyre, for appellant.

Chapter 141 of the Acts of 1912, is clearly unconstitutional, and is within the inhibitions of the fourteenth amendment; and also section 14, article 3, of the constitution of the state of Mississippi. Mo. K. T. RR. Co. v. Cade, 38 S.Ct. 639 and the cases cited therein.

This statute gives to individuals certain rights as against parties engaged in manufacturing, and does not give to parties the same rights engaged in other lines of business. While manufacturing may be inherently dangerous, this fact cannot affect the rights of an employee to collect his wages and the law cannot be so distorted as to give the employee of a manufacturer a right to collect attorneys' fees regardless of his contract, when all other wage earners are not given the same right.

"Classification is not to be made except upon the basis of some difference between the business of those favored and the business of those not favored--a substantial difference warranting the classification."

Ballard v. Miss. Cotton Oil Co., 81 Miss. 507. referring to a Texas statute similar to the one under consideration, the United States supreme court in the case of Mo. K. T. RR. Co. v. Cade, cited supra, quoting R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, says: "That act allowed the recovery of plaintiff's attorneys' fees in certain classes of cases, but only where the defendant was a railroad company, and it was adjudged to be invalid because it singled out a particular class of debtors, and imposed this burden upon them, without any reasonable ground existing for the discrimination. The classification was held to be arbitrary, because having no relation to the special privileges granted to this class of corporations, or to the peculiar features of their business."

A. J. McLaurin, Jr., for appellee.

The case of State v. J. J. Newman Lumber Company, reported in 60 Southern, at page 215, has no application in this case. Nowhere does that case say that laborers cutting trees or engaged in logging are not employees of the manufacturing concern. It merely says that such employees are not within the statute (Chapter 157, Laws 1912), intending to protect workmen engaged in Hazardous manufacturing enterprises. It nowhere declares them not to be employees. The statute was intended to protect just such employees as plaintiff in this case.

OPINION

HOLDEN, J.

The appellee, B. W. Webb, filed suit against the appellant, C. Sorenson, in the circuit court of Rankin county, claiming that the said Sorenson, who was engaged in the sawmill business, was indebted to appellee, Webb, in the sum of three hundred and thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents for hauling logs to Sorenson's sawmill. Sorenson denied the indebtedness, and the case went to trial, and there was a verdict for plaintiff for three hundred and sixty three dollars and fifty-two cents, fifty dollars of which was allowed as a reasonable attorney's fee in the case, and from this verdict Sorenson appeals here.

The fifty dollars attorney's fee recovery in the court below is based upon chapter 141 of the Acts of 1912, which is as follows:

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the legislature of the state of Mississippi, that every company, corporation or association now existing or hereafter organized in this state and any individual or partnership engaged in the business of manufacturing shall, in the absence of a written contract to the contrary, be required to make full settlement with and full payment in money to their employees for services performed at least once in every calendar month of the year: Provided that said employers may hold back fifteen days' wages earned immediately before the regular pay day, which wages to be included in the next settlement.

"Sec. 2. If any company, corporation, association, partnership or individual engaged in manufacturing, as provided in section 1 of this act, shall refuse or neglect to make such payment after demand, and within ten days from said demand, such employee may bring suit, and if recovery is had such employee may, in addition, recover reasonable attorney's fee for the prosecution of such suit, if such employee has employed an attorney to prosecute the same."

Appellant contends here that chapter 141, Acts of 1912, is unconstitutional and is within the inhibition of the Fourteenth Amendment of the...