State v. Potomac Valley Coal Co. of Garrett County

• Decision Date: 24 June 1911
• Citation: 81 A. 686,116 Md. 380
• Parties: STATE v. POTOMAC VALLEY COAL CO. OF GARRETT COUNTY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

81 A. 686

116 Md. 380

STATE v. POTOMAC VALLEY COAL CO. OF GARRETT COUNTY.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 24, 1911

Appeal from Circuit Court, Garrett County; Robert R. Henderson Judge.

The Potomac Valley Coal Company of Garrett County was indicted for an offense, and the State appeals from a judgment sustaining a demurrer to the indictment. Affirmed.

The following is the opinion delivered by the circuit judge referred to in the opinion of the court:

"The indictments in these three cases are precisely similar and charge the defendants with violating chapter 211 of the Acts of 1910. This act is entitled 'An act to repeal chapter 37 of the Acts of 1904 entitled an act to require all corporations engaged in mining coal or fire clay in Garrett county to pay their employés wages due semimonthly and to re-enact the same with amendments.' The material parts of the statute are as follows:

"'Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., that chapter 37 of the Acts of 1904, entitled an act to require all corporations engaged in mining coal or fire clay in Garrett county, to pay their employés wages due semimonthly, be and the same is hereby repealed and re-enacted with amendments to read as follows:

"'Sec 2. That all corporations or individual mine owners now or hereafter engaged in mining coal or fire clay in Garrett county, be and the same are hereby required to pay each and all their employés their wages earned in said employment semimonthly: That is to say; all wages earned on or before the 15th day of each month shall be paid not later than the 25th day of each month, and all wages earned from 16th day to the last day of the month, both inclusive, shall be paid on or before the 10th day of the succeeding months, unless said 25th day or 10th day of the month shall fall on Sunday or a legal holiday, in which case the time of payment shall be extended to the next day,' etc.

"Section 3 makes violation of the above provisions a misdemeanor and imposes a fine of $50 to $300. The amendment is in making the act applicable to individuals as well as corporations, and to those 'now or hereafter engaged,' etc.

"The indictments are formally correct, but in each case a demurrer is interposed to test the constitutionality of the act. The defendants contend that the law violates the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States because it abridges their rights as citizens of the United States and denies to them the equal protection of the law. The state contends that the act in question is a valid exercise of the police power, or, if not, it is a constitutional exercise of the right to amend the charters of the defendants, which are its creatures.

"It may as well be admitted at once that, if the act is an exercise of police power, its validity is unquestioned. But broad and undefinable as is the police power, its scope must be confined to those matters which concern the public health, safety, or morals. Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 18 S.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed. 780.

"Within these broad general limitations the Legislature has almost absolute discretion as to the means to be adopted to accomplish its purpose. But it is for the courts to say in each case whether the power attacked is in the exercise of a reasonable discretion by the Legislature, really within the bounds laid down above, or whether the reliance upon the police power be 'a mere excuse for an unjust discrimination or the oppression or spoliation of a particular class.'

"In respect to the subject of the regulation of the time and manner of the payment of wages, it may well be, and the courts have so decided, that this matter may bear some relation to the public welfare; but it does not necessarily do so. The line of distinction between the adjudicated cases seems to be that where this relation or connection exists reasonable regulations are unobjectionable, but where it is absent any attempt at such interference is unjustifiable and void.

"Amongst the earliest cases upon the subject of wage regulation are two decided in West Virginia in 1889. In State v. Goodwill et al., 33 W.Va. 179, 10 S.E. 285, 6 L. R. A. 621, 25 Am. St. Rep. 863, a law (Acts 1887, c. 63) providing that 'all persons, firms, corporations or associations engaged in mining coal, ore or other minerals, or mining and manufacturing them or either of them or manufacturing iron or steel, or both, or any other kind of manufacturing shall pay their employés as provided in this act,' and then prohibiting, under a penalty, such concerns from issuing for the payment of labor any order or other paper whatever unless redeemable at its face value in lawful money of the United States, bearing interest at the legal rate and made payable to the employés or bearer and redeemable within 30 days, was held unconstitutional because 'it is not competent for the Legislature, under the Constitution, to single out owners and operators of mines and manufacturers of every kind and provide that they shall bear burdens not imposed upon other owners of property or employers of labor and prohibit them from making contracts which it is competent for other owners of property or employers of labor to make. Such legislation cannot be sustained as an exercise of police power.'

"This was followed by West Virginia v. Fire Creek Coal & Coke Co., 33 W.Va. 188. 10 S.E. 288, 6 L. R. A. 359, 25 Am. St. Rep. 891, which held that an act (section 4 of chapter 63 of the Acts of 1887) which prohibited persons and corporations engaged in mining and manufacturing and interested in selling merchandise and supplies from selling any merchandise and supplies to their employés at a greater per cent. of profit than they sell to others not employed by them was unconstitutional, because it was class legislation and an unjust interference with private contracts and business.

"About the same time the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an act providing that the wages of miners should be paid in money, every two weeks; but no point seems to have been made against the time feature, and the court rests its judgment upon the rather absurd reason that the Legislature had the right to pass such an act to protect and maintain the lawful money of the nation.

"In State v. Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company (Rhode Island, 1892) reported in 18 R.I. 16, 25 A. 246, 17 L. R. A. 856, the Legislature of that state had provided that 'every corporation, other than religious, literary or charitable corporations, and every incorporated city, but not including towns, shall pay weekly the employés' (Acts 1891, c. 918), and a penalty was imposed for failure to do so. The court there sustained the constitutionality of the act, upon the ground that it was an amendment of all charters to which it applied, and cited the case of Shaffer & Munn v. Union Mining Co., 55 Md. 74. The court held that the law could not be obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States because that amendment has no application to corporations, and because a corporation is neither a citizen nor a person within its purview--a contention long since sent to its final resting place. Railroad Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 17 S.Ct. 255, 41 L.Ed. 666; Luman v. Hitchens Bros. Co., 90 Md. 24, 44 A. 1051, 46 L. R. A. 393. What force the judgment has must therefore rest upon the right of amendment of corporate charters.

"In State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 22 S.W. 350, 21 L. R. A. 789 (1893), the court held unconstitutional an act prohibiting mining or manufacturing concerns from issuing for the payment of wages any order or other evidence of indebtedness payable otherwise than in lawful money of the United States unless the same were negotiable and redeemable without discount in cash or in supplies at the option of the holder, because such a law deprived persons of liberty without due process of law. The court held that the 'liberty' guaranteed by the Constitution includes the right to freely buy and sell, make contracts and have them enforced as others may, and that the classification of mining and manufacturing enterprises for legislation regulating the mode of payment of employés was unreasonable and arbitrary and could not be upheld.

"In Frorer v. People, 141 Ill. 171, 31 N.E. 395, 16 L. R. A. 492, a company store act was held unconstitutional.

"In Re House Bill No. 1,230 (Mass. 1895) 163 Mass. 598, 40 N.E. 713, 28 L. R. A. 344, a proceeding peculiar to Massachusetts by which the opinion of the Supreme Court can be obtained by the Legislature, the court advised the lawmaking body that an act requiring manufacturers to pay the wages of their employés weekly, although applying to individuals as well as corporations, was within the power of the Legislature under the Constitution of that state, which extends such power 'to all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions, either with penalties or without, so as the same be not repugnant or contrary to the Constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of this commonwealth, and for the government and ordering thereof and of the subjects of the same and for the necessary support and defence of the government thereof,' etc. (Const. pt. 2, c. 1, § 1, art. 4), and does not in terms make any provisions as to freedom or liberty of contract. 'The legislation on this subject relates to a great variety of contracts, and has been passed, some of it to promote the public health or the public morals or the public convenience, and some of it for the protection of individuals from fraud, and some of it for the protection of classes of individuals against unfair or unconscionable dealing.'

"In Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 18 S.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed....