State v. Martin
| Decision Date | 17 April 1923 |
| Docket Number | 24,000 |
| Citation | 139 N.E. 282,193 Ind. 120 |
| Parties | State of Indiana v. Martin |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From Vanderburg Circuit Court; Philip C. Gould, Judge.
Prosecution by the State of Indiana against James R. L. Martin. From an order sustaining defendant's motion to quash, the State appeals.
Affirmed.
U. S Lesh, Attorney-General, George D. Heilman and Summer Kenner for the State.
Paul H Schmidt, for appellee.
Albert Darnell, by affidavit, charged appellee with unlawfully failing and refusing to pay him $ 27, wages alleged to be due him from appellee, after demand and within 72 hours after he had quit appellee's employment, in violation of §§ 7989e, 7989f Burns' Supp. 1921, Acts 1915 p. 107, §§ 3 and 4. The trial court sustained appellee's motion to quash, and that ruling is here assigned as error.
These sections read as follows: "Section 3.--Any person, firm, or corporation employing persons shall within seventy-two (72) hours after any employe voluntarily quits such service or is discharged, pay to such employe in full the wages due him to the time of quitting such service: Provided, Demand is made therefor and upon failure so to do, such person, firm or corporation shall be liable to such employe for each day until such payment is made in a sum equal to the daily wage of the employe." Section 4.--"Any person, firm or corporation, or officer of such company or corporation failing to comply with section three (3) of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($ 100.00) nor more than five hundred dollars ($ 500.00)."
The questions submitted for our consideration involve the constitutional validity of the foregoing statutes.
A cursory examination of the reported cases of this court will disclose that a number of statutes similar in general import to the ones here challenged have been considered and declared invalid because inhibited by our state Constitution, or as being within the restraints of our federal Constitution or its laws and treaties passed and made pursuant thereto.
Before calling attention to some of these cases, it may be well to note that, while a court should hesitate to declare a law unconstitutional, as it should to render any decision involving important consequences without careful consideration, yet it should not be led away from assuming such responsibility by phrases, clauses, or by the accumulation of the adverbs, "clearly," "plainly," "palpably," "unmistakably," and "undoubtedly," found in many able opinions, but which add no force to the plain statement that a court must be satisfied that a law, aided by all presumptions, is unconstitutional before it can declare it to be so. Whether the legislature has abridged some fundamental right of a citizen or has assumed its prerogative over subjects not within its province, are certainly judicial questions. Being judicial questions, then the inquiry must be ordinarily: Has the legislature transcended its powers?
The sections of the statute before us and asserted to be unconstitutional are not ambiguous or uncertain in their meaning. Hence there is no room for construction. There can be no question as to the legislative intent. For more than 35 years the general assembly of this state has been exceedingly active in passing laws pertaining to contracts between employer and employe, and especially those involving wages. Some of these laws on various theories have been sustained by this court, while many have been stricken down.
It would seem advisable at this point to briefly refer to several of these enactments. It will be remembered that in an action for the recovery of wages for manual labor and also for penalties and attorneys' fees, under §§ 1 and 2, Acts 1885 p. 36, these sections were held invalid, in that they affected only "every company, corporation or association" as employers, and the employes of such employers "engaged in manual or mechanical labor." Hence, they violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Toledo, etc., R. Co. v. Long (1907), 169 Ind. 316, 82 N.E. 757, 124 Am. St. 226.
Furthermore, §§ 1 and 4, Acts 1887 p. 13, providing for the payment of the amount due an employe in money, and a penalty of $ 1 per day after a ten-day demand, not to exceed the amount due, and reasonable attorneys' fees, were challenged in an action to test the validity of a contract wherein an employe expressly waived his right to demand and receive his wages in money for mining coal. These sections were held valid as against the contention that the act restricted or abridged the right to contract, as well as against the claim of unreasonable and arbitrary classification inhibited by Art. 1, § 23, of our Bill of Rights. Hancock v. Yaden (1890), 121 Ind. 366, 23 N.E. 253, 6 L.R.A. 576, 16 Am. St. 396. These sections were again before this court in the case of Seelyville Coal, etc., Co. v. McGlosson (1906), 166 Ind. 561, 77 N.E. 1044, 117 Am. St. 396, 9 Ann. Cas. 234, and again sustained, but the court, in speaking of the penalty provided in § 4, said: See, also, Macbeth Evans Glass Co. v. Amama (1911), 176 Ind. 1, 95 N.E. 228; Macbeth Evans Glass Co. v. Van Blarican (1911), 176 Ind. 69, 95 N.E. 313; Macbeth Evans Glass Co. v. Jones (1911), 176 Ind. 221, 95 N.E. 567.
In the case of Republic Iron, etc., Co. v. State (1903), 160 Ind. 379, 66 N.E. 1005, 62 L.R.A. 136, the court had under consideration §§ 1 and 2, Acts 1899 p. 193 (§§ 7984, 7987 Burns 1914). Section 1 required weekly payment of wages, and authorized the labor commissioners of the state, after notice and hearing, to exempt any of the employers mentioned in the statute whose employes prefer a less frequent payment. Section 2 authorized the state chief inspector or any person interested, by a suit in the name of the state, to enforce compliance with § 1, and further provided for the collection of a penalty of fifty per centum of the amount of the judgment to be paid into the school fund of the state. These sections were held to be in violation of Art. 1, § 1, of the state Constitution, and § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, which denies a state the power to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. It was the unreasonable restrictive features that condemned these sections and distinguished them from the Act of 1887, although Acts 1899 p. 193, § 4, § 7987 Burns 1914, which prohibited an employe from assigning his future wages, was held valid, on the ground that it involved a matter of public interest. International Text-Book Co. v. Weissinger (1902), 160 Ind. 349, 65 N.E. 521, 65 L.R.A. 599, 98 Am. St. 334. See, also, Chicago, etc., R. Co. v. Ebersole (1910), 173 Ind. 332, 90 N.E. 608.
In 1901 the general assembly passed what was commonly called the minimum wage law (Acts 1901 p. 282). The constitutionality of that law was the issue in the case of Street v. Varney Electrical Supply Co. (1903), 160 Ind. 338, 66 N.E. 895, 61 L.R.A. 154, 98 Am. St. 325. Section 1 fixed the minimum wage rate of 20 cents per hour for "unskilled labor employed upon any public work of the state, counties, cities, and towns," prohibited the employment of such laborers at a less rate, and fixed penalties for failure to comply therewith. Street sought to collect wages allowed by this statute, including a reasonable attorney's fee, together with a penalty not exceeding double the amount of wages due. This law in that suit was declared unconstitutional for the reason that counties, cities and towns are municipal and political subdivisions of the state, and the fixing of the minimum price for unskilled labor was a legislative interference with their liberty to contract, and therefore in violation of §§ 1 and 23 of Article 1 of the state Constitution, and of § 1, of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution.
Moreover, at this same session (Acts 1901 p. 548) an act was passed prohibiting the assignment of wages earned or unearned by any employe or laborer in coal mines, or of the issuance of any token, ticket or device by merchants to such employes payable or redeemable in anything other than money. This statute was treated as "an enactment operative only upon two classes of persons, merchants and employes in coal mines," and therefore a grant of special privileges and immunities to a favored class of citizens, which is forbidden by Art. 1, § 23, Constitution of Indiana. Dixon v. Poe (1902), 159 Ind. 492, 65 N.E. 518, 60 L.R.A. 308, 95 Am. St. 309.
The act of 1909, (Acts 1909 p. 76, § 7999 Burns 1914) prohibited a married man, the head of a family, from assigning his wages or salary without the consent of his wife. This section was held valid as against the assertion that it was in conflict with Art. 1, § 1, of our state Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, upon the theory that--"It is evident that in enacting § 4, supra, of the act of 1909, our legislature was controlled by the same purpose which led the framers of our Constitution to command, by § 22 of our Bill of Rights (Art. 1, § 22, Constitution), that liberal exemption laws be enacted, and which inspired the subsequent enactment of our many statutes designed for the protection of the wives and children of resident householders." Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Marshall (1914), 182 Ind. 280, 105 N.E. 570, Ann. Cas. 1917A 756.
Again in 1911, (Acts...
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