State v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 19 June 1943
• Docket Number: 38190
• Citation: 173 S.W.2d 902,351 Mo. 725
• Parties: State of Missouri, Appellant, v. Ralph Taylor and Ella Frederick
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

173 S.W.2d 902

351 Mo. 725

State of Missouri, Appellant, v. Ralph Taylor and Ella Frederick

No. 38190

Supreme Court of Missouri

June 19, 1943

Rehearing Denied July 6, 1943. Motion to Transfer to Banc Overruled September 7, 1943.

Appeal from Boone Circuit Court; Hon. W. M. Dinwiddie Judge.

Affirmed.

Roy McKittrick, Attorney General, and Harry H. Kay Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.

(1) In passing upon the constitutionality of an act, the court should indulge every presumption in favor of the constitutionality of the act. Williams L. & M. Co. v. Ginsburg, 347 Mo. 119, 146 S.W.2d 604; Hull v. Baumann, 345 Mo. 159, 131 S.W.2d 721; State ex rel. v. Smith, 342 Mo. 365, 115 S.W.2d 816; Ward v. Public Serv. Comm., 341 Mo. 227, 108 S.W.2d 136. (2) The question of classification of persons and things for legislative purposes is primarily one for the Legislature and it is the duty of the court to sustain such classification if there is any reasonable basis therefor. St. Louis Union Trust Co. v. State, 155 S.W.2d 107; Hull v. Baumann, supra; Poole & Creber Market Co. v. Brashers, 343 Mo. 1133, 125 S.W.2d 23. (3) The regulation of working hours of women is a proper exercise of the police powers of the State, and hence Section 10171, R. S. Mo. 1939, does not violate the "due process" clause nor the clause against abridgment of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States as found in Amendment XIV of the Constitution of the United States, nor does it violate the "due process" clause contained in Section 30 of Article II of the Constitution of Missouri. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412; Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U.S. 671; Miller v. Wilson, 236 U.S. 373; Radice v. New York, 264 U.S. 294; West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379; Doncourt v. Danaher, 126 Conn. 678, 13 A.2d 868; 90 A. L. R. 814. (4) Section 10171, R. S. Mo. 1939, does not violate Section 53 of Article IV of the Constitution of Missouri nor the "equal protection" clause of Amendment XIV of the Constitution of the United States in that it applies only to certain employments and not all employments and in that it specifically excludes certain employments. Miller v. Wilson, supra; Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U.S. 385; State ex rel. v. Calvird, 338 Mo. 601, 92 S.W.2d 184; State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo. 245; State v. Gregory, 170 Mo. 598; State v. Gritzner, 134 Mo. 512; Withey v. Bloem, 163 Mich. 419, 128 N.W. 913; State v. Collins, 47 S.D. 325, 198 N.W. 557; State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602, 70 P. 52; State v. Dominion Hotel, 17 Ariz. 267, 151 P. 958. (5) Section 10171, R. S. Mo. 1939, does not violate Section 53 of Article IV of the Constitution of Missouri in that it makes an act a crime in one locality in the State and not in another, since it is based upon a reasonable classification. St. Louis Union Trust Co. v. State, supra; Hull v. Baumann, supra; Carson v. Baldwin, 346 Mo. 984, 144 S.W.2d 134; Woolley v. Mears, 226 Mo. 41; State v. Walsh, 136 Mo. 400; Radice v. New York, supra.

Hulen & Sappington for respondents.

Section 10171 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri for 1939 violates Section 53 of Article IV of the Constitution of Missouri and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for the reason that said statute is a local and a special law regulating labor, trade and manufacturing, and constitutes arbitrary class legislation, and discriminates between the persons of a natural group. State v. Hedrick, 241 S.W. 402, 294 Mo. 21; Hines v. Hook, 89 S.W.2d 52, 338 Mo. 114; Idel v. Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co., 121 S.W.2d 817, 343 Mo. 373; City of Cape Girardeau v. Fred A. Groves Motor Co., 142 S.W.2d 1040, 346 Mo. 762; Woolley v. Mears, 226 Mo. 41, 125 S.W. 1112; State ex rel. v. O'Malley, 117 S.W.2d 319, 342 Mo. 641; Carson v. Baldwin, 144 S.W.2d 134, 346 Mo. 984.

OPINION

Ellison, J.

The State appeals from an order and judgment of the Boone county circuit court sustaining the defendants'-respondents' motion to quash the three counts of an information each of which severally and identically charged them with employing, permitting and suffering a named but different female employee to work at physical labor in a dress manufacturing establishment in Boone county known as the Ar-Cel Garment Company for a period in excess of nine hours, in violation of Sec. 10171, R. S. 1939, Mo. R. S. A. Sec. 10171; and further ordering that the respondents be discharged.

Respondents' motion to quash challenged the constitutionality of the statute on the grounds: that it deprived them of liberty and property without due process of law, and denied them the equal protection of the law, in violation of Sec. 30, Art. II, Constitution of Missouri, and Sec. 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; and that the statute is a local and special law regulating labor and manufacturing, violative of Sec. 53, subsection 24, Article IV of the Missouri Constitution. Briefs have been filed by the parties, and by the Missouri State Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the Kansas City, Missouri region as amici curiae. The statute is as follows:

"No female shall be employed, permitted, or suffered to work, manual or physical, in any manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment, or factory, workshop, laundry, bakery, restaurant, or any place of amusement, or to do any stenographic or clerical work of any character in any of the divers kinds of establishments and places of industry, hereinabove described, or by any person, firm or corporation engaged in any express or transportation or public utility business, or by any common carrier, or by any public institution, incorporated or unincorporated, in this state, more than nine hours during any one day, or more than fifty-four hours during any one week: Provided, that operators of canning or packing plants in rural communities, or in cities of less than ten thousand inhabitants wherein perishable farm products are canned, or packed, shall be exempt from the provisions of this section for a number of days not to exceed ninety in any one year: Provided further, that nothing in this section shall be construed and understood to apply to telephone companies; and be it further provided, that the provisions of this section shall not apply to towns or cities having a population of 3,000 inhabitants or less."

First, reviewing briefly the history of the statute. As originally enacted by Laws Mo. 1909, p. 616, and incorporated in the Revision of 1909 as Sec. 7815, it applied only to manufacturing and mercantile establishments, laundries and restaurants in cities of more than 5000 inhabitants. This statute was repealed by Laws Mo. 1911, p. 311, and a new section enacted in lieu thereof which added two vocations and dropped one. It was made applicable throughout the state without any exception. That statute was repealed and a new section passed in substantially its present form by Laws Mo. 1913, p. 400. That is, the coverage of the section was the same as now respecting the vocations named; and it contained the first proviso of the present Sec. 10171 partially exempting canning and packing plants in rural communities and cities of less than 10,000 inhabitants. It also contained the present second proviso, which then excluded both telegraph and telephone companies. Other than this the 1913 statute applied to all the vocations named regardless of where located in the state. The 1913 statute became the same as the present Sec. 10171, by amendment in Laws Mo. 1919, p. 447. This amendment cured a typographical error in the previous Act; omitted telegraph companies from the second proviso; and added the third proviso, which entirely excluded its application to cities of 3000 or less population.

The only issues tendered by respondents' motion to quash the information were those challenging the constitutionality of Sec. 10171, supra, as stated in the first paragraph of this opinion, under Sec. 30, Art. II and Sec. 53, subsection 24, Art. IV of the State Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment. These are the only issues discussed in the original briefs on both sides. Respondents did not and do not dispute that the General Assembly has power to regulate the hours and conditions of employment of women; and to make any reasonable classification of the employments to which those regulations shall apply (questions to which considerable space is devoted in the State's original brief and those of the amici curiae.) The real and only contention made by respondents is that the statute is discriminatory because it does not treat all women and therefore all employers of women in the designated vocations as a single class, but by the third and last provision leaves such employers in towns and cities of or under 3000 population free to require women to work more than nine hours per day and 54 hours per week. In other words, respondents' whole case is founded solely on said third proviso, which, it is contended, makes the statute a local and special law regulating labor and therefore discriminatory and deprivative of due process and their property rights.

Nevertheless in their original brief respondents further refer to the facts that the title of the 1919 Act merely declared its purpose to amend Sec. 7815 in the 1913 Act (italics ours) "by striking out certain words therein;" and that the recital in the first or enacting clause of the 1919 Act also was limited to a statement that the word "or" was being substituted for the word "of" in the eighth line. Neither the title nor the enacting clause disclosed the third proviso was being added. From this respondents argue that proviso was "slipped in." But that is the only point they make on the title. They do not contend the 1...