Starnes v. Albion Mfg. Co.
| Decision Date | 06 May 1908 |
| Citation | 61 S.E. 525,147 N.C. 556 |
| Parties | STARNES v. ALBION MFG. CO. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Mecklenburg County; Moore, Judge.
Action by Harry Starnes, by his next friend, W. S. Starnes, against the Albion Manufacturing Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Child labor laws are founded upon the principle that the right of the state to the guardianship of children controls the natural rights of the parent, when the welfare of society or the children conflicts with parental rights, and the extent to which the state may exercise such supervision is a question of expediency for the Legislature.
The parent has no vested right in the labor of his child, and the state has a paramount right to control both his labor and education when it deems it necessary to exercise the right for the general good.
Civil action brought to recover damages for personal injuries received while working in defendant's mill. The court submitted these issues:
From the judgment rendered, the defendant appealed.
Burwell & Cansler and R. S. Hutchison, for appellant.
Stewart & McRae, for appellee.
It seems to have been admitted that the plaintiff was employed by defendant to work in its cotton factory, and that he was assigned to the spinning room on the second floor; that his duties were to sweep out the spinning room and to make bands that plaintiff performed such duties from September, 1906 the date of his employment, until January 5, 1907, when he was injured. On that day he went down on the lower floor, as he had frequently done before, to see his father, who was running the carding machines. While there plaintiff got his hand caught and injured in the cylinder of one of the machines in charge of his father, in endeavoring to pick a piece of cotton off the card. At the time, his father was some 20 steps distant tending another machine. The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to prove that at the date of his injury he was not quite 10 years of age, and that when he was hired to defendant by his father the defendant's agent and superintendent knew he was under 12 years of age. Defendant offered evidence tending to contradict these allegations as to age and knowledge, and to prove that the boy was taken in the factory upon his father's representations as to age, and under the belief that he was over 12 years of age. In the view we take of the case it is unnecessary to consider defendant's first second, and fourth assignments of error, relating to exceptions to evidence. If the rulings of his honor were erroneous they worked no injury to plaintiff.
The contentions of defendant may be summarized as follows: (1) That section 3362 of the Revisal of 1905 is violative of article 1, § 17, of the state Constitution, as well as the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States-(a) the act deprives the citizen of his property rights without due process of law; (b) the act denies to certain citizens the equal protection of the law. (2) That the court erred in holding that a violation of the statute, by employing plaintiff knowing him to be under 12 years of age, is negligence per se. (3) That the court erred in refusing the defendant's prayer for instruction as follows: "Unless the jury are satisfied, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the plaintiff, at the time of his injury, was engaged in the work for which he was employed, then his employment, though contrary to law, was not the proximate cause of his injury, and the jury will answer the first issue 'No."'
The act in question was considered by this court in the recent cases of Rolin v. Tobacco Co., 141 N.C. 300, 53 S.E. 891, 7 L. R. A. (N. S.) 335, and Leathers v. Tobacco Co., 144 N.C. 330, 57 S.E. 11, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 349. The constitutionality of the law was not called in question and therefore not discussed in the opinion of the court. It was assumed, and we think correctly so, that the law is well within the police power of the state, and violates none of the fundamental rights of the parent. We do not understand the learned counsel for the defendant to deny to the Legislature the general power to regulate the employment of children, but we understand his argument to be that the act is void because it fails to designate the kind of labor which is prohibited to children under the age fixed by the statute. Child labor laws have been adopted in nearly all the states of this Union and Canada, and are in force in nearly all the governments of Europe and of the Australian Continent. They are founded upon the principle that the supreme right of the state to the guardianship of children controls the natural rights of the parent, when the welfare of society or of the children themselves conflict with parental rights. In this country their constitutionality, so far as we can ascertain, has never been successfully assailed. The supervision and control of minors is a subject which has always been regarded as within the province of the legislative authority. How far it shall be exercised is a question of expediency, which it is the province of the Legislature to determine.
The constitutional guaranty of the liberty of contract does not apply to children of tender years nor prevent legislation for their protection. "So far as such regulations control and limit the powers of minors to contract for labor, there has never been," says Mr. Tiedmann, 1 Tiedmann, State & Fed. Con. p. 325. Another eminent writer says: "The constitutionality of legislation for the protection of children or minors is rarely questioned, and the Legislature is conceded a wide discretion in creating restraints." "Even the courts which take a very liberal view of individual liberty and are inclined to condemn paternal legislation would concede that such paternal control may be exercised over children, especially in the choice of occupations, hours of labor, payment of wages, and everything pertaining to education, and in these matters a wide and constantly expanding legislative activity is exercised." Freund Police Power, § 259. We do not think the fourteenth amendment in any way limits the power of the state to regulate in good faith the labor of minors. Speaking of the scope of this amendment and its effect upon the police power of the states, the Supreme Court of the United States says in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 5 S.Ct. 357, 28 L.Ed. 923-"But neither the fourteenth amendment, broad and comprehensive as it is nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of ...
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