State v. International Harvester Co.

• Decision Date: 05 March 1954
• Docket Number: No. 30143,30143
• Citation: 241 Minn. 367,63 N.W.2d 547
• Parties: STATE v. INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 547

63 N.W.2d 547

241 Minn. 367

STATE v. INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO.

No. 30143.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 5, 1954.

Rehearing Denied April 21, 1954.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The doctrine of waiver is not applicable in a criminal prosecution for the violation of a statute expressing the public policy of the state which was in existence prior to the alleged waiver.

2. The Minnesota pay-while-voting statutes, M.S.A. §§ 206.21 and 210.11, are not so discriminatory, unreasonable, or unequal in their application to employers of the class to which appellant belongs, or to employees placed in a certain category by reason of daily working shifts and thereby excluded from the benefits of their provisions, as to constitute an unlawful exercise of the police power or a violation of the due process and equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.

3. The Minnesota pay-while-voting statutes are not in conflict with the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., since the purpose of the latter act is not to control the rights of the several states against either management or labor but to protect the legitimate rights of employers and employees in their relations affecting commerce.

4. Enforcement of §§ 206.21 and 210.11, in conjunction with § 610.19, does not result in an indirect imposition of imprisonment for debt in violation of Minn.Const. art. 1, § 12, since these statutes raise a statutory obligation to pay rather than a 'debt' and prosecution for violation of such statutes only constitutes the legal sanction imposed by the state under its police powers for breach of a statutory duty.

Fowler, Youngquist, Furber, Taney & Johnson, Minneapolis, for appellant.

J. A. A. Burnquist, Atty. Gen., James F. Lynch, County Atty., John P. Frank, Asst. County Atty., William F. Desmond, Asst. County Atty., St. Paul, for respondent.

Francis X. Helgesen, Minneapolis, amicus curiae.

NELSON, Justice.

This case arose upon a verified complaint filed in the municipal court of the city of St. Paul, signed by Francis Davidson, president of Local Union No. 763, International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. The complaint charged that the defendant International Harvester Company unlawfully deducted wages of one of its employees for absenting himself from work during the forenoon of election day, November 4, 1952, contrary to and in violation of M.S.A. §§ 206.21 and 210.11. On that day the polls in the city of St. Paul were open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The defendant company employed its workers in two daily shifts; the first between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., and the second shift between 4:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Each of its employees was hired pursuant to a union contract dated January 2, 1951, which contained the following provision 'Article XVIII

'Voting

'Employees shall be allowed the necessary time off without pay to vote in any Federal, State or Municipal election.'

Thomas D. Kennedy, the employee here involved, was a regular employee of a parts depot operated by the defendant company at 767 Eustis street in the city of St. Paul. Kennedy resided at 496 Dayton avenue in said city, and the polling place for his voting district was at 405 Selby avenue. On election day Kennedy absented himself from work for two hours in the forenoon, while on his regular shift, for the purpose of voting, and he performed no services for his employer during this period. The defendant company deducted from his wages the sum of $3.50 for that day, such deduction representing two hours of absence from work at $1.75 per hour.

Prior to the election date, Mr. Davidson, who at the time was employed by defendant company and was president of Local 763 of the union which had entered into the employer-employee contract with defendant company, met with Walter Swales, industrial relations advisor at the parts depot. At that meeting Mr. Swales was asked whether the employees would be given time off to vote as provided by state law, and he informed Mr. Davidson that word had been received from the home office that the employees would not be allowed time off to vote with pay. Davidson admitted at the trial that with this background he had made the present complaint. A letter from the Chicago office of the defendant company, dated October 29, 1952, signed by Ivan L. Willis, vice president, revealed that the company's policy as to absence for voting purposes was to allow any employee the necessary time off, but nonsalaried employees were not to be paid for any lost time and salaried employees would receive their full salaries, free from deductions, only if advance notice was given to the supervisor of his intention to vote during working hours and if he could not vote without loss of regular working hours.

The matter was submitted to the trial court pursuant to written stipulation of facts and oral testimony taken during the trial. No controversy exists here as to the facts, the state being in agreement that all the facts as stated by the appellant in its brief are correct. The defendant company was adjudged guilty as charged in the complaint and ordered to pay a fine of $100, and it appeals from the judgment.

The following statutes of the state of Minnesota are involved:

'206.21 EMPLOYEES MAY VOTE WITHOUT LOSS OF TIME. Every employee entitled to vote at an election shall be permitted to absent himself from his work for that purpose during the forenoon of each election day, without a penalty or deduction from salary or wages on account of such absence.'

'210.11 REFUSING EMPLOYEE ELECTION PRIVILEGE. Every person who as principal or as an official or agent of any other person, shall directly or indirectly refuse, abridge, or in any manner interfere with any of the election privileges or immunities of any employee of himself or his principal, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'

'610.19 PUNISHMENT OF MISDEMEANORS WHEN NOT FIXED BY STATUTE. Whoever is convicted of a misdemeanor for which no punishment is prescribed by any statute in force at the time of conviction and sentence shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than three months, or by a fine of not more than $100.'

The main issues presented are as follows:

Whether defendant company is in a position to attack the constitutionality of § 206.21, in conjunction with §§ 210.11 and 610.19, and, if so, whether §§ 206.21 and 210.11, applied in conjunction with § 610.19, are repugnant to the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt, Minn.Const. art. 1, § 12, M.S.A.

Whether the statutes in question are so discriminatory, unreasonable, and unequal in their application to employers of the same class to which defendant belongs as to constitute an unlawful exercise of the police power and a violation of the due process, equal protection, and impairment of contract obligations of Minn.Const. art. 1, §§ 2, 7, 8, 11, and 13, and U.S.Const. art. I, § 10, and U.S.Const.Amend. XIV, § 1.

Whether the provisions in the employment contract to the effect that employees were entitled to time off to vote, but without pay, constitute a valid waiver of the prohibition against a penalty or deduction from salary or wages found in § 206.21.

1. The latest decisions, including Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. State of Missouri, 342 U.S. 421, 72 S.Ct. 405, 96 L.Ed. 469, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States March 3, 1952, in considering the validity of statutes granting time off to vote either with or without pay, have stated that the choice of the means of attaining the desired objective is to be left to legislative power and discretion. State v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 362 Mo. 299, 240 S.W.2d 886; People v. Ford Motor Co., 271 App.Div. 141, 63 N.Y.S.2d 697; Ballarini v. Schlage Lock Co., 100 Cal.App.2d Supp. 859, 226 P.2d 771. ¹

The present statutes which we are considering had their beginning in L.1891, c. 4, § 127, and in L.1893, c. 4, § 109, each enactment entitled 'An act to regulate elections.' L.1893 contained a more detailed treatment of the subject and referred to 'Any person or corporation, or officer or member thereof, who shall refuse to an employe the privilege hereby conferred, * * *.'

The coded §§ 206.21 and 210.11 are the same as L.1939, c. 345, part 6, c. 8, § 21, and part 9, c. 1, § 11, respectively. L.1939, c. 345, substituted the words 'every person' for 'any person or corporation.' There has been no change in these sections since L.1939, c. 345, entitled 'An act to regulate elections.' The general provisions of this act are now coded as M.S.A. chapters 200 to 212, inclusive, and § 206.21 is to be found in the chapter on 'conduct of elections and manner of voting,' and § 210.11 in the chapter on 'penal provisions' under the general head of 'elections.' The general designation 'every person' includes corporations in the present statutory provisions involved here. See, § 645.44, subd. 7; 5 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. Person, p. 251; State v. Minneapolis Milk Co., 124 Minn. 34, 144 N.W. 417, 51 L.R.A.,N.S., 244.

The defendant company contends that, since the contract of employment entered into in the year 1951 between it and its employees provided time off to vote Without pay, there was in effect a waiver of the pay-while-voting statutes of Minnesota and that therefore the penal section has not been offended. These statutes had in effect been on the statute books of this state for approximately 60 years, and it must be presumed that this contract was made in contemplation thereof. It is well established that freedom of contract is a qualified right and not an absolute right, and this qualification on liberty of freedom to contract has long been recognized. The obligations of this contracy cannot properly be said to be impaired by statutes in force when the contract was made. There appears to be ample precedent for the proposition that in the public interest the legislature...