State v. Goodwill.
| Decision Date | 18 November 1889 |
| Citation | 33 W.Va. 179 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | State v. Goodwill.State v. Minor.*(Green, Judge, Absent.) |
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 can not be sustained as an exercise of the police power.
The third section of chapter 63, Acts 1887, (Code 1887, p. 983) which prohibits persons engaged in mining and manufacturing from issuing for the payment of labor any order or paper, except such as is specified in the said act, is unconstitutional and void.
Henritze & Haythe, G. W. Smith, J. W. St. Clair, and Brown $ Jackson for plaintiffs in error.
Attorney General Alfred Caldwell for the State.
Snyder, President:
These two cases present the same questions, and may, therefore, be considered together. The first is a writ of error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Mercer county, pronounced on April 3, 1889; and the second is a writ of error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Fayette county, pronounced September 29, 1887. Both are indictments and convictions for the violation of section 3 of chapter 63, Acts 1887. See Code 1887, p. 963.
The title of said act is as follows: "An act to secure to operatives and laborers engaged in and about mines, manufactories of iron and steel, and all other manufactories, the payment of their wages at regular intervals, and in lawful money of the United States." And the first and third sections are in these words: "(1) That all persons, firms, corporations, or associations in this State, engaged in mining coal, ore, or other minerals, or mining and manufacturing them, or either of them, or manufacturing iron or steel, or both or any other kind of manufacturing, shall pay their employes as provided in this act." "(3) That it shall not be lawful for any person, firm, company, corporation, or association engaged in the business aforesaid, their clerk, agent, officer, or servant, in this state, to issue for the payment of labor any order or other paper whatsoever unless the same purports to be redeemable, for its face value, in lawful money of the United States, bearing interest at the legal rate, made payable to employe or bearer, and redeemable within a period of thirty days by the person, firm, company, corporation, or association giving, making, or issuing the same." The residue of the section makes its violation a misdemeanor, and fixes the penalty at not less than $25.00, or more than $100.00.
There was a demurrer to each of the indictments, which was overruled by the court; and the plaintiffs in error assign this as ground for the reversal of the judgments.
The main question argued before this Court is whether or not the said statute is constitutional, the counsel for the plaintiffs in error contending that it is unconstitutional and void, and the Attorney-General insisting that it is a proper exercise of the police power, and therefore not unconstitutional and void.
It will be observed that this statute applies to certain specified classes of persons, firms, companies, corporations and associations and none others. It is by its terms limited to persons, corporations, etc., engaged in mining coal or other minerals, or any kind of manufacturing. While these terms include not only all persons engaged in mining coal and other minerals, and all persons engaged in manufacturing iron and steel, but also all persons engaged in any kind of manufacturing, such as the shoe-maker, the cigar-maker, the undertaker, the distiller, the brick-maker, the jeweler, the weaver, the milliner, the dairyman and the miller, it does not include the wholesale merchant with his hundreds of clerks and agents; the railroad constriction companies, or railroad companies with their thousands of employes. The propriety or the necessity, if such exists, of applying the provisions of the statute to these latter is equally as great, if not greater, as it is to any of the former. The rights and privileges of certain specified employers;ire abridged, while others of the same class are left free.
By the first section of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States all persons born or naturalized in the United States are made citizens thereof; and it then declares that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." And the "bill of rights" of this State declares that "all men are, by nature, equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society,.hey can not by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." Const, art. III, § 1. Can the legislature, in view of these constitutional guarantees, limit or forbid the right of contract between parties under no mental, corporal, or other disability, when the subject of contract is lawful, not public in its character, and the exercise of it is purely private and personal to the parties themselves?
The court, in People v. Gillson, says: 109 N Y. 398 (17 N. E. Rep. 343): Field, J., in Butchers' Union Co, v. Crescent City, etc., Co., 111 IT. S. 755 (4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 652); Association v. Crescent City Co., 1 Abb. (U. S.) 398.
The court in Civil Rights Cases, says: 109 U. S. 23 (3 Sup. Ct. Rep, 18).
The rights of every individual must stand or fall by the same rule of law that governs every other member of the body politic under similar circumstances; and every partial or private law which directly proposes to destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by restricting the privileges of certain classes of citizens and not of others, when there is no public necessity for such discrimination, is unconstitutional and void. Were it otherwise, odious individuals or corporate bodies would be governed by one law, and the mass of the community, and those who make the law, by another; whereas, a like general law, affecting the whole community equally, could not have been enacted. Wally v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554.
The property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands; and to hinder him from employing these in what manner he may think proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It it is equally an encroachmeut both upon the just liberty and rights of the workman and his employer, or those who might be disposed to employ him, for the legislature to interfere with the freedom of contract between them, as such interference hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, and at the same time prevents the other from employing' whom he chooses. A person living under the protection of this government has the right to adopt and follow any lawful industrial pursuit, not injurious to the community, which he may see fit. And, as incident to this, is the right to labor or employ labor, make contracts in respect thereto upon such terms as may be agreed upon by the parties, to...
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