State v. Lee

• Decision Date: 17 January 1929
• Docket Number: No. 6592.,6592.
• Citation: 144 A. 159
• Parties: STATE v. WAH LEE.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

144 A. 159

STATE

v. WAH LEE.

No. 6592.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Jan. 17, 1929.

Case Certified from District Court, Sixth Judicial District.

Criminal proceeding by the State against Wah Lee for conducting a public laundry in violation of a statute. On question certified under Gen. Laws 1923, c. 343, § 5. Question answered.

Elmer S. Chace, City Sol., and Clifton I. Munroe, Asst. City. Sol., both of Providence, for complainant.

Baker & Spicer and Albert A. Baker, all of Providence, for defendant.

SWEETLAND, C. J. The above-entitled case is a criminal complaint now pending in the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District, in which it is charged that the respondent, Wah Lee, conducts a public laundry in violation of section 2, chapter 1200, of Public Laws 1928.

After hearing, the associate justice of said court certified to this court for determination the following question as one of doubt and importance in the opinion of said justice: "If a person operates and conducts an establishment having signs with the word 'Laundry' printed thereon attached to the building in which such establishment is located, solicits laundry business from the general public for profit, receives soiled clothes to be washed, cleaned and ironed, sends those clothes to a wet wash laundry operated by some person other than the defendant, for washing, and upon their return to the person operating and conducting the establishment first in this question mentioned, starches, irons, and prepares them for delivery in packages to the customers, said establishment being equipped with electric ironing machines, flats, starching materials and apparatus, which electric ironing machines, flats, starching materials and apparatus are used by the person first mentioned in this question in such starching, ironing and preparing for delivery (but such person does no washing of clothes on his premises), is such an establishment to be deemed a 'public laundry' within the meaning of section 1, chapter 1200 of the Public Laws of 1928?"

Section 1, chapter 1200, Public Laws 1928, so far as the same relates to the question before us, is as follows: "Section 1. In this act unless the context otherwise requires 'public laundry' shall mean and include any plant or equipment conducted or operated as a laundry for profit, and for which business is solicited from the general public, but shall not mean or include a laundry operated exclusively for and in connection with a hospital, school or other institution, hotel, boarding-house or private dwelling, nor a laundry operated by one institution which also serves another institution."

Section 2 of said chapter which the respondent is charged with violating, among other things, provides that no person shall conduct or operate a public laundry in any city or town until "the licensing authorities of such city or town shall have caused an inspection to be made of such laundry and shall have issued a permit for the operation thereof," and further that "such permit shall be issued upon such terms and subject to such rules and regulations not inconsistent with law, as said licensing authorities may prescribe for the purpose of protecting the public health and the suppression of insanitary conditions."

It is the contention of the respondent that he is not subject to the provisions of the act, for the reason that he does not conduct a public laundry. He bases this contention on the fact that he does no washing upon his premises of the soiled clothes delivered to him by customers, although he performs the other services necessary to be done to return the clothes to the customer in accordance with the respondent's undertaking as set out in the question.

The act does not particularly and comprehensively define a public laundry save as a "plant or equipment conducted or operated as a laundry for profit, and for which business is solicited from the general public." The standard dictionaries define a laundry as "a place where laundering is being done;" and among the definitions given to the term "to launder" is "to wash, and to smooth with a flatiron or mangle." Webster's New International Dictionary; Century Dictionary.

The act is based upon a legislative determination that the public health is liable to be endangered by the contamination of clothes while they remain in the possession of a public laundry which is maintained in an insanitary condition, or operated in an insanitary manner. The purpose of the General Assembly in the enactment is plainly to guard the communities of the state from this danger by a system of inspection and a control of the operation of such laundries through permits.

In accordance with a fundamental rule, the intent of the General Assembly should be the guiding consideration in the construction of the statute; and the words of the statute should be interpreted in the sense in which they are popularly used in the communities to which the statute applies. If the language permits, a construction should be given to the act which best effects the purpose of the Legislature.

Whatever may be the etymological derivation of the word, in the social and domestic life of to-day the popular and ordinary meaning of the term "laundry," used in connection with the word "public," is that of a place to which the public are invited to deliver soiled clothes to be washed, dried, starched, ironed, and subjected to the processes ordinarily employed to render soiled clothes suitable for further use. An establishment which performs all or any considerable portion of those services for the public is in common acceptation "a public laundry." We know of no general term other than that of a "public laundry" which would properly designate a...