State v. Bunting

• Decision Date: 17 March 1914
• Citation: 71 Or. 259,139 P. 731
• Parties: STATE v. BUNTING.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

139 P. 731

71 Or. 259

STATE v. BUNTING.

Supreme Court of Oregon

March 17, 1914

In Banc.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lake County; Henry L. Benson, Judge.

F. O Bunting was convicted of employing a man to labor in his manufacturing establishment for more than 10 hours, to wit for 13 hours in one day, in violation of Laws 1913, c. 102 and appeals. Affirmed.

W. Lair Thompson, of Lakeview, for appellant. J. W. Crawford, of Salem (A. M. Crawford, Atty. Gen., and O. C. Gibbs, of Lakeview, on the brief), for the State.

BEAN J.

Section 1 of the act declares as follows: "It is the public policy of the state of Oregon that no person shall be hired, nor permitted to work for wages, under any conditions or terms, for longer hours or days of service than is consistent with his health and physical well-being and ability to promote the general welfare by his increasing usefulness as a healthy and intelligent citizen. It is hereby declared that the working of any person more than ten hours in one day, in any mill, factory or manufacturing establishment is injurious to the physical health and well-being of such person, and tends to prevent him from acquiring that degree of intelligence that is necessary to make him a useful and desirable citizen of the state."

Section 2 enacts the following: "No person shall be employed in any mill, factory or manufacturing establishment in this state more than ten hours in any one day, except watchmen and employés when engaged in making necessary repairs, or in case of emergency, where life or property is in imminent danger; provided, however, employés may work overtime not to exceed three hours in any one day, conditioned that payment be made for said overtime at the rate of time and one half the regular wage."

Section 3 provides a penalty for a violation of the statute.

Defendant demurred to the indictment upon the ground that the legislative enactment alleged to have been violated is invalid, because repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and to that of the state of Oregon.

It is contended that the statute violates the right of contract, the right of property, and that it is class legislation and void. The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which it is claimed the act contravenes, declares, inter alia, that "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 laws." Section 20, art. 1, of the Constitution of this state is as follows: "No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens." To give the act vitality it must be done by virtue of the police power of the state.

It is an announced principle of law that the right to labor or to employ labor on such terms and conditions as may be stipulated by the contracting parties is not only a liberty, but a property right guaranteed to every citizen by the fourteenth amendment above quoted. Such right cannot be arbitrarily or unreasonably interfered with by the Legislature. State v. Muller, 48 Or. 252, 85 P. 855, 120 Am. St. Rep. 805, 11 Ann. Cas. 88; affirmed in 208 U.S. 412, 28 S.Ct. 324, 52 L.Ed. 551, 13 Ann. Cas. 957. The right to labor and to employ labor, like all other rights, is itself subject to such reasonable limitations as are necessary to promote the health, general welfare, and intelligence of the citizens, and the peace and good order of the state. To this end a large discretion is from necessity vested in the lawmakers to determine not only what the interests of the public require but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests. State v. Muller, supra; State v. Baker, 50 Or. 381, 92 P. 1076, 13 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1040, 126 Am. St. Rep. 751; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 136, 14 S.Ct. 499, 38 L.Ed. 385; Mugler v. Kan., 123 U.S. 623, 8 S.Ct. 273, 296, 31 L.Ed. 205; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 18 S.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed. 780; Ritchie & Co. v. Wayman, 244 Ill. 509, 91 N.E. 695, 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 994; State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602, 70 P. 52, 59 L. R. A. 342, 92 Am. St. Rep.

930; In re Boyce, 27 Nev. 299, 75 P. 1, 65 L. R. A. 47, 57, 1 Ann. Cas. 66; Cooley Const. Lim. p. 830. By the adoption of the fourteenth amendment it was not designed nor intended to curtail or limit the right of the state under its police power to prescribe such reasonable regulations as might be essential to the promotion of the peace, welfare, morals, education, or good order of the people. It was adopted primarily to protect the then newly liberated negroes of the South from practical re-enslavement by their former masters, and to authorize Congress to protect the civil rights of these persons by appropriate legislation. Reports of Committees of House, 39th Congress, 1st Sess. vol. 2, p. 13 et seq. To now invoke its provisions to perpetuate industrial servitude would be a perversion of its beneficent purposes.

The hours of labor in certain industries, in which too many hours of service in one day would be injurious to the health and well-being of the operatives, may be reasonably regulated by the state, under its police power. This power legitimately exercised can neither be limited by contract nor bartered away by legislation. We quote from Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 530, 4 S.Ct. 111, 118 (28 L.Ed. 232): "The Constitution of the United States was ordained, it is true, by descendants of Englishmen, who inherited the traditions of English law and history; but it was made for an undefined and expanding future, and for a people gathered and to be gathered from many nations and of many tongues." See Holden v. Hardy, supra, 169 U.S. page 388, 18 S.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed. 780. The extent and limitations upon the police power of a state are well stated by Mr. Chief Justice Shaw in Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. (Mass.) 53, 84: "We think it is a settled principle, growing out of the nature of well-ordered civil society, that every holder of property, however absolute and unqualified may be his title, holds it under the implied liability that his use of it may be so regulated, that it shall not be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others having an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor injurious to the rights of the community. All property in this commonwealth, as well that in the interior as that bordering on tide waters, is derived directly or indirectly from the government, and held subject to those general regulations which are necessary to the common good and general welfare. Rights of property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their enjoyment as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations established by law, as the Legislature, under the governing and controlling power vested in them by the Constitution, may think necessary and expedient."

The police power cannot be forwarded as an excuse for the enactment of unreasonable, oppressive, or unjust laws. Yet it may be legitimately exercised for the purpose of preserving the public health, safety, morals, and general welfare. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 616; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220. We quote from the majority opinion in Re Ten-Hour Law for Street Ry. Corporations, 24 R.I. 603, at page 605, 54 A. 602, at page 603 (61 L. R. A. 612): "There is also a common assent that the Legislature has the right of control in all matters affecting public safety, health, and welfare, on the ground that these are within the indefinable but unquestioned purview of what is known as the police power. It is indefinable, because none can foresee the ever-changing conditions which may call for its exercise; and it is unquestioned, because it is a necessary function of government to provide for the safety and welfare of the people. Private rights are often involved in its exercise, but a law is not on that account rendered invalid or unconstitutional." The police power comprehends by far the greater portion of the powers which may be exercised by a state. As stated by Judge Cooley in his work on Constitutional Limitations (7th Ed.) p. 829, it "embraces its whole system of internal regulation, by which the state seeks not only to preserve the public order and to prevent offenses against the state, but also to establish for the intercourse of citizens with citizens those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of his own so far as is reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others."

The limitation of the law to mills, factories, or manufacturing establishments is not in itself an unconstitutional discrimination. The work in factories is as different from that in mercantile houses as that in mines is from either. Freund on Police Power, § 313. It is conceded that the state by virtue of its police power may regulate the hours of labor of women and minors ( Commonwealth v. Riley, 210 Mass. 387, 97 N.E. 367, 25 Ann. Cas. 388; State v. Shorey, 48 Or. 396, 86 P. 881, 24 L. R. A. [N. S.] 1121), also of persons in underground mines, reduction plants, and smelters, and of men in the employ of common carriers.

All reasonable intendments will be made in favor of a law not obviously void upon its face. Cline v. Greenwood, 10 Or. 230; Crowley v. State, 11 Or. 512, 6 P. 70. It will therefore be presumed that the Legislature has acted...