State v. Haun

• Decision Date: 09 December 1899
• Docket Number: 11,309. [*]
• Citation: 61 Kan. 146,59 P. 340
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS v. C. L. HAUN
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

59 P. 340

61 Kan. 146

THE STATE OF KANSAS v. C. L. HAUN

No. 11,309. ^[*]

Supreme Court of Kansas

December 9, 1899

Decided July, 1899.

Appeal from court of appeals, southern department; A. W. DENNISON M. SCHOONOVER, and B. F. MILTON, judges,

STATEMENT.

THE appellant was convicted in the district court for a violation of chapter 145, Laws of 1897 (Gen. Stat. 1897, ch. 73 §§ 22-26), which reads:

"AN ACT to secure to laborers and others the payment of their wages, and prescribing a penalty for the violation of this act, and repealing section 2441, 2442 and 2443 of the General Statutes of 1889, and all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith.

'Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:

"SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, company corporation, or trust, or the agent, or the business manager of any such person, firm, company, corporation or trust, to sell, give, deliver, or in any way directly or indirectly to any person employed by him or it, in payment of wages due or to become due, any scrip, token, check, draft, order, credit on any book of account or other evidence of indebtedness payable to bearer or his assignee, otherwise than at the date of issue, but such wages shall be paid only in lawful money of the United States, or by check or draft drawn upon some bank in which any person, firm, company, corporation, or trust, or the agent, or the business manager of any such person, firm, company, corporation, or trust, has money upon deposit to cash the same.

"SEC. 2. All contracts to pay or accept wages in any other than lawful money, or by check or draft, as specified in section one, of this act, and any private agreement or secret understanding that wages shall be or may be paid, in other than lawful money, or by such check or draft, shall be void, and the procurement of such private agreement or secret understanding, shall be unlawful and construed as coercion on the part of the employer.

"SEC. 3. If any person shall violate any of the provisions of either section one or two of this act, or shall compel, or in any manner attempt to compel, or coerce any employee of any corporation, or trust to purchase goods, or supplies, from any particular person, firm, corporation, company or trust or at any particular store or place, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or be imprisoned in the county jail not less than thirty or more than ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment for each violation.

"SEC. 4. This act shall apply only to corporations or trusts or their agents, lessees, or business managers, that employ ten or more persons.

"SEC. 5. The county attorney of any county upon complaint made to him shall proceed to prosecute the violators of this act as prescribed in other cases of misdemeanor.

"SEC. 6. That sections 2441, 2442 and 2443 of the General Statutes of Kansas, of 1889, and all acts and parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed."

The information filed in the cause against the appellant charges, in substance, that on or about the 22d day of September, 1897, the defendant, C. L. Haun, being the agent and cashier of the Kansas Commercial Coal Company, a corporation doing business in Crawford county, Kansas, operating coal-mines, and employing more than ten persons, did unlawfully, on behalf of said coal company, give and deliver a certain order commonly called "punch-check" to one E. P. Graves, as follows:

"$ 2.00.

FULLER, KANSAS, 9-22-1897.

"Kansas Commercial Coal Company: Please accept this as my order for store merchandise to the amount of two dollars, and charge the same to my account. Not transferable.

E. P. GRAVES."

The said order was delivered to Graves for wages to become due, then and there earned by his personal labor in the coal-mines of the coal company, said Graves being employed by said company to work in and about its mines. The order, commonly called a "punch-check," was delivered to said Graves upon his personal application, made between pay-days of said coal company. On appeal to the court of appeals, the judgment of conviction was affirmed. (7 Kan.App. 509, 54 P. 130.)

A. A. Godard, attorney-general, for The State.

Morris Cliggitt, and Perry & Crain, for appellant.

SMITH J. JOHNSTON, J., concurring. DOSTER, C. J. dissenting.

OPINION

SMITH, J.:

In sustaining the constitutionality of the act under consideration the court of appeals held that it applied only to corporations and trusts severally employing ten or more persons; and further, that the act is constitutional as a valid exercise of legislative authority to alter and amend corporate charters. The fact has been ignored that the complaint upon which the appellant was tried and convicted does not charge that the coal company for which he was acting was incorporated under the laws of this state. The agreed statement of facts recites merely that the Kansas Commercial Coal Company was a duly organized corporation, engaged in the business of mining coal for private gain, among other places, in Crawford county, Kansas. There is neither allegation nor proof that the corporation obtained its charter in Kansas. Nor can there be a presumption in a criminal case that it was a domestic corporation, in order to sustain a conviction. While the state might prohibit a foreign corporation from doing business here, it can hardly be claimed that it could alter or amend a corporate charter granted by the laws of another state. We will proceed, however, by assuming that the coal company was a Kansas corporation.

There is no suggestion in the title of the act that the provisions of corporate charters are to be in anywise affected. The title reads:

"An act to secure to laborers and others the payment of their wages, and prescribing a penalty for the violation of this act, and repealing section 2441, 2442 [61 Kan. 150] and 2443 of the General Statutes of 1889, and all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith."

Turning to the General Statutes of 1889, we find that sections 2441, 2442 and 2443 (Gen. Stat. 1897, ch. 109, §§ 1, 2, 3), repealed, have no reference to corporate charters. The sections repealed are incorporated in the Laws of 1887, chapter 171, entitled "An act to secure to laborers in and about coal-mines and manufactories the payment of their wages at regular intervals, and in lawful money of the United States."

A person engaged in the pursuit of information regarding the extent of corporate powers under the laws of this state would receive no hint from the title of the act of 1897 that the law in question was intended for any such purpose. In the General Statutes of 1897 the act is made a part of chapter 73, under the head, "Of Labor and the Protection of Laborers," and nowhere appears classified in that part of the statute relating to corporations. This is mentioned as indicating that the compiler of the General Statutes saw nothing in the act which indicated to him that it in any wise affected the powers of corporations. The first section of the act makes it unlawful for any person, firm, company, corporation or trust to give any scrip, token, check or order to any employee. The application of this section to persons, firms, companies and trusts makes it quite clear that the general scope and purpose of the law is defined in its title, and that the alteration or amendment of corporate charters was never intended by the legislature and is not expressed in the body of the act, when the true rules of construction are applied thereto.

In the concurring opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Doster, in Railway Co. v. Medaris, 60 Kan. 151, 155, 55 P. 875, the same reasons are employed to show that the "fellow-servant" law of 1874 could not be regarded as amendatory of corporate charters. To hold that corporate charters are affected is to set at naught section 16, article 2, of the constitution, which reads: "No bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title." This requirement is mandatory. (Comm'rs of Sedgwick Co. v. Bailey, 13 Kan. 600.) No information appearing in the title that corporate charters are affected, such subject is not only not clearly expressed but is not expressed at all. The object of this constitutional command is "to prevent the practice of embracing in the same bill incongruous matters having no relation to each other, or to the subject specified in the title, by which measures were often adopted without attracting attention." (Suth. Stat. Const. §§ 78-85, and cases cited; The State v. Barrett, 27 Kan. 213; The State v. Sholl, 58 id. 507, 49 P. 668.) To satisfy the constitutional requirement the language of the act should be broad enough to show that corporate rights were either increased or abridged. In the view taken by the court of appeals, the sanction of the act is visited upon corporations and trusts employing ten or more persons, treating trusts as equivalent to corporations. Our statute defines a trust. Section 14, chapter 145, General Statutes of 1897 (Gen. Stat. 1899, § 7508), reads:

"A trust is a combination of capital, skill, or acts, by two or more persons, firms, corporations, or associations of persons, or either two or more of them, for either, any or all of the following purposes." (Then follow the particular acts prohibited.)

Just how the court of appeals concluded that the act we are now considering did not apply to individuals, but to trusts and corporations only, when a trust may be composed of persons or firms associated together, we do not understand. A trust may, or may not be, endowed with corporate powers. If not, then it is a mere...