State v. Haun

• Decision Date: 01 June 1898
• Docket Number: 492
• Citation: 7 Kan.App. 509,54 P. 130
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS v. C. L. HAUN
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

54 P. 130

7 Kan.App. 509

THE STATE OF KANSAS v. C. L. HAUN

No. 492

Court of Appeals of Kansas, Southern Department, Central Division

June 1, 1898

Opinion Filed August 18, 1898.

Appeal from Crawford district court; WALTER L. SIMONS, judge. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Perry & Crain, and Morris Cliggitt, for appellant.

L. C Boyle, attorney-general, and T. J. Widby, for appellee.

MILTON J. SCHOONOVER, J., concurring. DENNISON, P. J., dissents.

OPINION

MILTON, J.:

From a conviction under an information charging a violation of chapter 145, Laws of 1897, C. L. Haun appeals. It was charged that Haun was agent and cashier of the Kansas Commercial Coal Company, a corporation doing business in Crawford county Kansas, in operating coal-mines, and employing more than ten persons in operating said mines in that county, and that as such agent and cashier Haun did unlawfully, and on behalf of the coal company, sell, give and deliver a certain order, commonly called a punch-check, to one E. P. Graves, a miner employed by the corporation in its mines, for wages then earned by said Graves and not yet due and payable to him. The information set out a copy of the check, and averred that it had originally contained various marginal figures, aggregating two dollars, and that such figures had been punched out. The check reads:

"$ 2.00.

FULLER, KAN., 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.

"No. 452.

E. P. GRAVES."

Trial by jury was waived, and the case submitted to the court upon an agreed statement of facts, which, in addition to admitting the foregoing allegations of the information, stipulated that the order or punch-check was issued to Graves "only upon the application and request of said Graves, and between the pay-days of the said Kansas Commercial Coal Company, and at the time when no wages were due and payable to the said Graves by the contract under which the said Graves was then and there performing labor for the Kansas Commercial Coal Company."

The title and sections 1, 2 and 4 of chapter 145, Laws of 1897, read:

"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 sections 2441, 2442 and 2443 of the General Statutes of 1889, and all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith.

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

Section 3 declares that any person who shall violate any of the provisions of either section 1 or 2 of the 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, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine or imprisonment, or both.

As section 4 expressly limits the application of the statute to corporations or trusts employing ten or more persons, it follows that all parts thereof inconsistent with this limitation must fall. The provision of section 3 concerning coercion of employees in respect to purchase of goods and supplies is clearly not within the scope of the act as indicated by its title and consequently cannot be regarded as a valid part of the act. Eliminating these provisions, the act in substance provides: (1) That it shall be unlawful for any corporation or trust which employs ten or more persons to pay the wages of its employees otherwise than in lawful money, or in checks or drafts drawn against bank deposits of money; (2) that all contracts for other kinds of payment shall be void, and procurement of such contracts shall be construed as coercion on the part of the employer; (3) that any violation of the provisions of sections 1 or 2 of the act shall be a misdemeanor.

The word "trusts," as used in the act, has been regarded by counsel as being equivalent to "corporations," and we shall consider the case with reference to corporations alone. In the trial court the defendant challenged the constitutionality of this act, and the grounds of such challenge are now presented to this court.

I. It is claimed that the act is in conflict with section 17, article 2, of the state constitution, which reads:

"All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the state, and in all cases where a general law can be made applicable no special law shall be enacted."

It is urged that this legislation is void for the reason that it singles out certain corporations -- that is, those which severally employ ten or more persons -- and arbitrarily deprives them of rights and privileges which are retained by all other corporations and trusts and individuals. We regard this objection as untenable. In the case of McAunich v. M. & M. V. Rld. Co., 20 Iowa 338, 343, in considering an objection to a certain law as being class legislation, the court said:

"These laws are general and uniform, not because they operate upon every person in the state, for they do not, but because every person who is brought within the relations and circumstances provided for is affected by the law. They are general and uniform in their operation upon all persons in the like situation, and the fact of their being general and uniform is not affected by the number of persons within the scope of their operation."

The above is quoted with approval by the supreme court of the United States in the case of Chicago &c. Rld. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U.S. 155, 24 L.Ed. 94. In Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 32, 28 L.Ed. 923, 5 S.Ct. 357, it was objected that an ordinance of the city of San Francisco was in conflict with the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution, in that it discriminated between laborers engaged in the laundry business and those engaged in other kinds of business, and between laborers within the limits designated by the ordinance and those outside of such limits. The court said:

"Class legislation, discriminating against some and favoring others, is prohibited, but legislation which, in carrying out a public purpose, is limited in its application, if within the sphere of its operation it affects alike all persons similarly situated, is not within the amendment."

In Mo. Pac. Rly. Co. v. Haley, 25 Kan. 35, the case of McAunich v. Railroad Co., supra, is cited and expressly followed. In Shaffer v. Union Mining Co., 55 Md. 74, an act to prohibit the payment of employees of certain corporations operating in Allegany county otherwise than in legal-tender money of the United States, and which included only corporations engaged in mining or manufacturing or operating railroads in that county, and employing ten or more persons, was held valid as an exercise by the legislature of its power to alter and amend corporate charters. In the case of State v. Peel Splint Coal Co., 36 W.Va. 802, 15 S.E. 1000, the constitutionality of a statute, the operation of which was similarly limited, was sustained, and the provision limiting its application was expressly declared not to be "class legislation."

II. It is earnestly contended that this act violates the first clause of section 16, article 2, of the state constitution, which provides that no bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title. Counsel for appellant say that a reading of this title shows the subject of the legislation is to secure to laborers the payment of their wages, not necessarily in money, but in anything, or in any manner, or at any time, the parties choose to fix. We quote from their brief:

"The title conveys to the mind three ideas: (1) That its purpose is to secure to laborers the payment of their wages. (2) The infliction of a penalty for doing anything to prevent the securing of the payment. (3) That certain sections of the revised statutes, and any other conflicting enactments, are repealed. This may be further simplified by stating that the title conveys nothing more than that the purpose of the act is to make safe the payment to laborers of their wages. If, therefore, the act does anything more than to secure the payment of wages, it infringes the mandate of the constitution."

Also:

"The attorney-general seems to be of the impression that the court is at liberty to turn to the body of the...