State v. Anaconda Copper-Min. Co.

• Decision Date: 29 January 1900
• Citation: 59 P. 854,23 Mont. 498
• Parties: STATE v. ANACONDA COPPER-MIN. CO.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

59 P. 854

23 Mont. 498

STATE v. ANACONDA COPPER-MIN. CO.

Supreme Court of Montana

January 29, 1900

Appeal from district court, Silverbow county; William Clancy, Judge.

The Anaconda Copper-Mining Company, convicted of violation of the act requiring cages of all mines to be cased in, appeals. Affirmed.

J. K Macdonald, for appellant.

C. B Nolan, for the State.

HUNT J.

Conviction for violation of section 705 of the Penal Code, as amended by an act of the 5th legislative assembly entitled "An act to amend section 705 of title X. of the Penal Code of the state of Montana, to have the cages in all mines cased in." Laws 1897, p. 245. After a jury was impaneled and sworn to try the case, defendant moved that it be discharged upon the ground that the amendatory act cited above is unconstitutional, for the reason that the subject thereof is not clearly expressed in its title. This motion was overruled, and defendant duly excepted. Thereupon the state introduced evidence to sustain the charge. After the state rested, defendant sought to prove that the devices called for by the provisions of the amendatory act would not tend to promote the safety of those using the cages to which they were attached, but that, on the contrary, such devices would be dangerous, and likely to result in accident. To this offer of evidence the state, by its counsel, objected, and the court sustained the objection. Defendant duly excepted. The jury convicted the defendant, and from a judgment imposing a fine of $300 defendant appeals.

The amendatory act, following the original section (705) of the Penal Code, makes it unlawful for "any corporation *** to sink or work, through any vertical shaft where mining cages are used, to a greater depth than three hundred feet, unless said shaft shall be provided with an iron bonneted safety cage." The most significant change between the original provision of the Code and the statute as amended is that the latter requires cages to be cased in with sheet iron, or steel, or wire netting, and to have doors of the same material, to be hung on hinges or made to slide, and to be at least five feet high from the bottom of the cage; whereas the original statute was silent concerning any such method of construction, thus leaving it optional with the mine operator to encase his cages or not, as he pleased. Evidently, therefore, it was to remove any choice in the matter, and to compel the mine operator to adopt an inclosed cage, that the amendment of 1897, supra, was enacted. Is the subject contained in the amended bill clearly expressed in the title, as required by section 23, art. 5, of the state constitution? The purposes of the clause of the constitutional mandate that the subject of a bill shall be clearly expressed in its title have been considered and defined by this court in State v. Mitchell, 17 Mont. 67, 42 P. 100; Jobb v. Meagher Co., 20 Mont. 424, 51 P. 1034; and the authorities cited in these cases. Briefly summarized, they are: To restrict the legislature to the enactment of laws the objects of which legislators and the public as well may be advised of, to the end that any who are interested, whether as representatives or those represented, may be intelligently watchful of the course of the pending bill. The limitation is likewise designed to prevent legislators and the people from being misled by false or deceptive titles, and to guard against fraud in legislation by way of incorporating into a law provisions concerning which neither legislators nor the public have had any intimation through the title read or published. Com. v. Brown (Va.) 21 S.E. 357, 28 L. R. A. 110. But by this constitutional notice it is only intended that the subject of the bill shall be fairly expressed in the title. It is not necessary--for the constitution has not so declared--that a title shall embody the exact limitations or qualifications contained in the bill itself which are germane to the purpose of the legislature, if the general subject of the measure is clearly expressed in the title. Upon the highest authority it is held that, under constitutional provisions substantially like that referred to in Montana, where the degree of particularity necessary to be expressed in the title of a bill is not indicated by the constitution itself, the courts ought not to "embarrass legislation by technical interpretations based upon mere form or phraseology. The objections should be grave, and the conflict between the statute and the constitution palpable, before the judiciary should disregard a legislative enactment upon the sole ground that it embraced more than one object, or, if but one object, that it was not sufficiently expressed by the title." Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U.S. 155, 2 S.Ct. 391, 27 L.Ed. 431; Powell v. Supervisors, 88 Va. 707, 14 S.E. 543.

In harmony with these sound principles of the construction of like constitutional limitations, we are of opinion that appellant's point is not well taken. We fail to see in the title of this amending bill any substantial departure from the constitutional requirement. That the bill itself contained but one subject is obvious; in fact, we do not understand appellant to contend otherwise. That one...