State v. Brown & Sharps Manufig Co.

• Decision Date: 03 October 1892
• Citation: 25 A. 246,18 R.I. 16
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. BROWN & SHARPS MANUFIG CO.

25 A. 246

18 R.I. 16

STATE

v. BROWN & SHARPS MANUFIG CO.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Oct. 3, 1892.

Case certified from district court, sixth district.

Action by the state against the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company for violation of Pub. Laws, c. 918, entitled "An act providing for weekly payments to employes of corporations," which was passed March 4, 1891, and required such payment to be made under penalty. The defendant corporation was chartered by an act of the general assembly in 18(38, with all the powers and privileges, and subject to the duties and liabilities, set forth in Rev. St. cc. 125, 128, and of any act in amendment thereof or in addition thereto. On the trial the district court adjudged defendant guilty, and certified the cause to the supreme court for the determination of the constitutional question raised by the defendant that chapter 918 of the Public Laws was unconstitutional. The question presented was answered adversely to the defendant, and the case remanded for further proceedings.

Nicholas Van Slyck and Cyras M. Van Slyck, for plaintiff.

William G. Roelker, for defendant. C. F. Baldwin and E. L. Gannon, for the "interest of the wage earners."

George J. West, for "intervening labor organizations."

ROGERS, J. In this case constitutional questions were certified to the supreme court under Pub. St. R. I. c. 220, §§ 1-9, by the district court of the sixth judicial district. In the district court complaint was brought charging the defendant with violating the provisions of Pub. Laws R. I. c. 918, of March 4, 1891, known as the "Weekly Payment Law," and upon the examination thereon the defendant moved that the complaint be quashed and dismissed, because said chapter was unconstitutional and void, being in conflict with the constitution of the United States, especially with articles 5, 14, § 1, of the amendments thereof, and also with the constitution of Rhode Island, and particularly with article 1, §§ 2, 10, 16, thereof. The district court overruled the motion, and, having adjudged the defendant probably guilty, has certified the questions involved in it to this court for decision.

Chapter 918 of the Public Laws, entitled "An act providing for weekly payments to employes of corporations," was passed March 4, 1891, and is as follows: "Section 1. Every corporation, other than religious, literary, or charitable corporations, and every incorporated city, but not including towns, shall pay weekly the employes engaged in its business the wages earned by them to within nine days of the date of such payment, unless prevented by inevitable casualty: provided, however, that, if at any time of payment any employe shall be absent from displace of labor, he shall be entitled to said payment at any time thereafter on demand. Sec. 2. Any corporation violating any of the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, one half thereof to the use of the complainant, and the other half to the use of the state: provided, complaint for such violation is made within thirty days from the date thereof. Sec. 3. This act shall take effect on and after the first day of May, A. P. 1891." The defendant corporation was chartered by an act of the general assembly, passed at its May session, 1868, "for the purpose of manufacturing machinery, and working in iron and other materials, and for the transaction of other business connected therewith, * * * with all the powers and privileges, and subject to all the duties and liabilities, set forth in chapters 125 and 128 of the Revised Statutes, and of any act in amendment thereof or in addition thereto." Chapter 125 of the Revised Statutes was entitled "Provisions respecting corporations in general," and the last section thereof, which still remains in force, reads as follows: "All acts of incorporation hereafter granted may be amended or repealed at the will of the general assembly, unless express provision be made therein to the contrary." There was no express provision in the defendant's act of incorporation to the contrary. Chapter 128 of the Revised Statutes was entitled." Of manufacturing corporations," and contained general provisions relating to such corporations.

It is agreed that the defendant's charter is part of the record of the case, and that at the trial in the district court the defendant offered to prove that subsequent to the passage of chapter 918 of the Public Laws it made a contract with its employes, including the complainant, Curtis, to pay them otherwise than weekly, and in accordance with the terms of said lastmentioned chapter, and that the court excluded such evidence. After an oral argument of this case, time was allowed for filing briefs, which were to be submitted to all the members of the court, and, in addition to the briefs filed by the counsel for complainant and defendant respectively, two long and elaborate briefs favoring the constitutionality of the act have been filed by the permission of the court, and by consent of the complainant's counself,—one, in the words of its title, "in the interest of the wage earners whose interests are affected by said act;" and the other by counsel signing himself, "Counsel for Intervening Labor Organizations."

The brief filed "in the interest of the wage earners" calls our "attention," in the words of the brief, "to sections 1 and 2 of chapter 220 of the Public Statutes, not for the purpose of raising a technical objection to the consideration of this cause, but in order that the point may no t be subsequently urged, and that the decision may be final and conclusive;" that the district court "had no jurisdiction to try and determine the cause, and could only bind over the defendant to the grand jury, and, so far as the record in this cause goes, it does not appear that even that was done." In other words, the point of the suggestion is that no judgment, within the meaning of chapter 220, had been rendered in the district court against the party raising the constitutional question, and consequently there was nothing that could properly be certified to this court. We do not think the point will taken. The first nine sections of chapter 220, providing for certifying constitutional questions to the supreme court, were intended to provide a summary method for the authoritative decision of such questions, and for such decision to substitute the supreme court for the inferior court. After such decision the cause was to he remanded to the inferior tribunal for its further action. It was not the final judgment or sentence of such tribunal that was to be rendered before the cause was certified to the supreme court, as is manifest from the language of sections 6 and 9. A judgment is the determination of the law as the result of proceedings instituted in a court of justice. In the case at bar, the district court, as appears by its indorsement upon the papers, "adjudges the respondent corporation to be probably guilty," and there upon certified the case to the supreme court upon the question of the constitutionality of the act under which the complaint was made. When the case is remanded to the district court, that tribunal will either discharge the defendant, or bind it over, as the decision of this court upon the constitutional question may make proper. We are of the opinion that there was a sufficient judgment, within the meaning of section 2 of chapter 220, in the district court, against the defendant, to give this court jurisdiction over the constitutional question now brought before us for decision.

The contention of the defendant is that chapter 918 of the Public Laws is unconstitutional—First, because it interferes with the liberty of the individual to contract for the sale of his labor to the best advantage as he sees fit, and also with the liberty of the corporation so to contract with the individual; and, second, because it is class legislation of the worst kind, in that it applies only to corporations, and only to certain classes of corporations at that. As to so much of the defendant's contention as relates to the fifth amendment of the constitution of the united States, it is sufficient to say that it is well settled that that amendment, like all the rest of the first 10 amendments, is intended solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the government of the United States, and is not applicable to the legislation of the states. Barron v. Mayor, etc., 7 Pet. 247; State v. Paul, 5 R. I. 185, 196; In re Liquors of Fitzpatrick, 16 R. I. 60, 63, 11 Atl. Rep. 773; Holmes v. Tennison, 14 Pet. 540, 587; Withers v. Buckley, 20 How. 84; Twitchell v. Com., 7 Wall. 321, 325; Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131, 136, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 21; Cooley, Const. Lim. 29.

The defendant's contention that chapter 918 of the Public Laws infringes section 1 of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States is not in our opinion well founded. That section reads as follows: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law." Chapter 918 applies only to corporations, and it applies to all corporations of the same class or classes. It applies only to the future, and it is in no sense retroactive. In Railway Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, 208, 209, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1161, it was contended that the law of Kansas passed in 1874 was in conflict with the fourteenth amendment, in that it deprived the railway company of its property without due process of law, and denied to it the legal protection of the laws. The...