State v. Reaser

• Decision Date: 09 January 1915
• Docket Number: 18,407
• Citation: 145 P. 838,93 Kan. 628
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. PHIL REASER, Appellant
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

145 P. 838

93 Kan. 628

THE STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. PHIL REASER, Appellant

No. 18,407

Supreme Court of Kansas

January 9, 1915

Decided. January, 1915.

Appeal from Crawford district court; ANDREW J. CURRAN, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. COAL MINES--Statute for Protection of Employees--Within Legislative Power. Chapter 222 of the Laws of Kansas of 1911 was enacted in the exercise of the police power of the state to promote the health of employees in coal mines and is within the legislative power of the state.

2. SAME--Statute for Protection of Employees--Constitutional and Valid. The law applies to all mines of a designated class and is not violative of the bill of rights or constitution of Kansas nor of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States because not applicable to other classes or kinds of mines.

C. E. Benton, and W. P. Dillard, both of Fort Scott, for the appellant; John J. Campbell, of Pittsburg, of counsel.

John S. Dawson, attorney-general, and S. N. Hawkes, assistant attorney-general, for the appellee.

OPINION

SMITH, J.

The appellant, Phil Reaser, was charged with a misdemeanor for failing to comply, as superintendent and agent of the Western Coal & Mining Company, with the provisions of chapter 222 of the Laws of 1911. Trial was had before a justice of the peace of the county, and the defendant was found guilty and fined. An appeal was duly taken to the district court of Crawford county and, upon the case being called for trial therein, the defendant filed his motion to quash the complaint upon the ground, substantially, that chapter 222 of the Laws of 1911, under which the complaint was made, is in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the bill of rights, and section 17 of article 2 of the constitution of Kansas, and of section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. On the hearing, the motion to quash was overruled, and this constitutes the most important question in the case.

The questions involved are very analogous to those involved in the case of In re Williams, 79 Kan. 212, 98 P. 777 (affirmed 222 U.S. 415, 56 L.Ed. 253, 32 S.Ct. 137), known as the black powder case. The act involved in that case (Laws 1907, ch. 250, Gen. Stat. 1909, §§ 5045-5051) imposed upon the operators of coal mines certain regulations involving greater expense in the operation of coal mines, the object of which was to guard the employees from the accidental explosion of the powder used in such mining and to guard such employees from the consequences thereof. Identically the same objections were made to that act as are made to the act involved in this case, above recited.

It is probably true that the requirements of the act in question involve a greater expense to the mining companies than did the provisions of the black powder act, but there is no showing that such requirements are confiscatory or unreasonable in consideration of the object to be attained.

It is contended in this case that the act is discriminatory in that it places burdens upon coal-mine operators while the operators of lead, zinc, gypsum and salt mines are free from such burdens, and it is contended that the occupation of working in such other mines is equally hazardous and dangerous to the health of the employees as is the work in coal mines; that a general law could have been made applicable to all such employments, and therefore the special law is in violation of section 17 of article 2 of the constitution of Kansas. It can not be said as a matter of law that the contention is correct.

On the other hand, it is contended that the act in question was passed in the exercise of the police power of the state and that the legislature had a right to select as a class persons engaged in the mining of coal and to make a law specially applicable to that class. It is practically conceded that the enactment of the law was in the exercise of the police power, and only as such can it be sustained.

The determination of the necessity and wisdom of a police regulation rests, in the first instance, upon the legislature, and if there be reasonable grounds for exercising such power the court should not interfere although its judgment might not fully concur with that of the legislature. In McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U.S. 539, 53 L.Ed. 315, 29 S.Ct. 206, it was said:

"The legislature, being familiar with local conditions, is, primarily, the judge of the necessity of such enactments. The mere fact that a court may differ with a legislature in its views of public policy, or that judges may hold views inconsistent with the propriety of the legislation in question affords no ground for judicial interference, unless the act in question is unmistakably and palpably in excess of legislative power." (p. 547.)

In St. Louis Cons. Coal Co. v. Illinois, 185 U.S. 203, 46 L.Ed. 872, 22 S.Ct. 616, it was said:

"The regulation of mines and miners, their hours of labor, and the precautions that shall be taken to insure their safety, health and comfort, are so obviously within the police power of the several states that no citation of authorities is necessary to vindicate the general principle." (p. 207.)

(See, also, Rambo v. Larrabee, 67 Kan. 634, 73 P. 915; Health Dep't v. Rector, etc., 145 N.Y. 32, 39 N.E. 833, 27 L. R. A. 710, 45 Am. St. Rep. 579; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 38 L.Ed. 385, 14 S.Ct. 499.)

In Booth v. State, 179 Ind. 405, 100 N.E. 563, sustaining the validity of a similar statute requiring bathhouses at coal mines, it was said:

"The act of March 8, 1907, . . . requiring the owners or operators of coal mines to erect and maintain washhouses, being a proper exercise of the police power, is not open to the objection that it contravenes the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States in that it deprives the owner or operator of property without compensation.

"The legislature alone may determine, inside the limits fixed by the Constitution, when public safety or welfare requires the exercise of the police power, and the courts can only interfere when a statute conflicts with the Constitution and have nothing to do with the wisdom, policy or necessity of the enactment." (Syl. PP 8, 9.)

It is a matter of common knowledge in Kansas that many of the coal mines therein are worked at considerable depths and that the temperature in such mines is...