State v. Fire Creek Coal & Coke Co

• Decision Date: 18 November 1889
• Citation: 33 W.Va. 188,10 S.E. 288
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: State v. Fire Creek Coal & Coke Co.

10 S.E. 288

(33 W.Va. 188)

State

v.Fire Creek Coal & Coke Co.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Nov. 18, 1889.

Constitutional Law—Regulation of Private Business.

The fourth section of chapter 63, Acts 1887, which prohibits persons and corporations engaged in mining and manufacturing, and interested in selling merchandise and supplies from selling any merchandise or supplies to their employes at a greater per cent, of profit than they sell to others not employed by them, is unconstitutional and void, because it is class legislation, and an unjust interference with private contracts and business. (Syllabus by the Court.)

J. W.St. Clair, for plaintiff in error. Atty. Gen. Caldwell, for the State.

Snyder, P. Writ of error to a judgment of the circuit court of Fayette county, pronounced on September 29, 1887, upon an indictment against the Fire Creek Coal & Coke Company, a domestic corporation. There was a motion to quash, and a demurrer to the indictment, —each of which were overruled, —a trial by jury and conviction, and a fine of $25 imposed upon the defendant. The indictment is under the provisions of the fourth section of chapter 63, Acts of 1887, which provides, in substance, as follows: That it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, company, corporation, or association engaged in mining or manufacturing, and who shall be interested in merchandising, to knowingly and willfully sell any merchandise or supplies whatsoever to any employe at a greater per cent, of profit than merchandise and supplies of the like character, quality, and quantity are sold to other customers, buying for cash, and not employed by them. The violation of this section is made a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceed-ing $100 and not less than $25. In State v. Goodwill, ante, 285, (decided by us at the present term,) this court held it is not competent for the legislature, under the constitution, to single out owners and operators of mines, and manufacturers of every kind, and provide that they shall bear burdens not imposed on other owners of property or employers of labor, and prohibit them from making contracts which it is competent for other owners of property or employers of labor to make. Such legislation cannot be sustained as an exercise of the police power. And we also held, in that case, that the third section of the same act, under which the indictment now under consideration is founded, is unconstitutional and void. In that case we referred to the constitutional provisions, both state and federal, and reviewed at some length the decisions of the courts in respect to the power of the legislature to enact laws such as the one here in question. The provision of the statute which we declared invalid in that case was an attempt to prohibit persons engaged in mining and manufacturing from issuing, for the payment of labor, any order or paper, except such an order as is specified in the act. The chief ground upon which we held that section void was that it discriminated against a class of...