State v. Collins

• Decision Date: 01 May 1924
• Docket Number: 5527
• Citation: 198 N.W. 557,47 S.D. 325
• Parties: STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA, Plaintiff and respondent, v. W. S. COLLINS, Defendant and appellant.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

47 S.D. 325

198 N.W. 557

STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA, Plaintiff and respondent,

v.

W. S. COLLINS, Defendant and appellant. South Dakota Supreme Court Appeal from Municipal Court of Sioux Falls, SD Hon. Ransom L. Gibbs, Judge #5527--Affirmed Parliman & Parliman, Sioux Falls, SD Attorneys for Appellant. Buell F. Janes, Attorney General Ray F. Drewry, Assistant Attorney General, Pierre, SD Attorneys for Respondent. Opinion filed May 1, 1924

GATES, P. J.

Section 10014, Rev. Code 1919, was amended by chapter 308, Laws 1923, § 1, to read as follows:

"Any employer, or other person having control who shall compel any woman, girl or child under the age of sixteen years to labor or be employed for more than ten hours in any day, or fifty-four hours in any week, except that for five days prior to Christmas he or she may be employed not to exceed twelve hours per day during that period shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not to exceed thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment; provided that this section shall not apply to farm laborers, domestic servants, telegraph and telephone operators or to persons engaged in the care of livestock; and provided further that in cities having a population of three thousand or less according to the last state or federal census, the standard day may by agreement be made not to exceed ten hours."

In the municipal court of Sioux Falls a complaint was filed charging the defendant with unlawfully compelling one Josephine Secor to be employed for more than ten hours on July 14, 1923, in his public cafe. The defendant demurred to the complaint for that it did not charge the commission of a public offense. The demurrer was overruled, and defendant has appealed.

The argument relates solely to the constitutionality of the above mentioned act of 1923. It is claimed that article 6, §§ I, 2, and 18 of our state Constitution and the federal Fourteenth Amendment have been violated thereby.

After the decisions of the highest court of our land in the "hours of labor" cases (Muller v. Oregon, 28 SCt 324, 52 LEd 551, 13 AnnCas 957; Riley v. Mass., 34 SCt 469, 58 LEd 788; Hawley v. Walker, 232 II. S. 718, 34 SCt 479, 58 LEd 813; Miller v. Wilson, 35 SCt 342, 59 LEd 628, LRA 1915F, 829; Bosley v. McLaughlin, 35 SCt 345, 59 LEd 632; Bunting v. Oregon, 37 SCt 435, 61 LEd 830, AnnCas 1918A, 1043), all doubts as to the constitutionality of this act of the Legislature would seem to have been laid at rest. The appellant, however, relies upon the decision in Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 43 SCt 394, 67 LEd 785, 24 ALR 1238, and in particular the comments of Mr. Justice Sutherland as to the effect of the Nineteenth Amendment upon the status of women. Appellant contends that the effect of that decision is to overrule the cases above cited. That case was a "minimum wage" case...