State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 20 February 1890
• Citation: 10 S.E. 876,32 S.C. 123
• Parties: State v. Williams.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

10 S.E. 876

(32 S.C. 123)

State

v.Williams.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Feb. 20, 1890.

Master and Servant —Breach of Contract — Indictment—Constitutional Law.

1. Gen. St. S. C. § 2081, provides that contracts between land-owners and laborers "shall clearly set forth the conditions upon which the laborer or laborers engage to work, embracing the length of time, the amount to be paid, and when." Section 2084 makes the violation of such contracts an indictable offense. Held, that a contract by which the employer agrees to pay the laborer a certain sum for his services for a year, and the laborer agrees to serve for a year for the specified sum, giving 26 days in each month, does not sufficiently set forth the time when the amount is to be paid.

2. An indictment under Gen. St. S. C. § 2084, for the violation of a written contract to serve as a laborer, which fails to set out the contract, or to show that the contract alleged to have been violated was of such a character as that described in the statute, does not charge an indictable offense.

3. A request to charge "that, if the jury should find that the contract does not state the time when the laborer was to be paid, the contract is void, and the defendant should be acquitted, " is properly refused, as it is the province of the court to construe the contract.

4. A statute which makes the violation of contracts for service a criminal offense is not unconstitutional, as imposing involuntary servitude.

5. Gen. St. S. C. § 2084, which makes the violation of a contract between a land-owner and a laborer indictable, and fixes the limit of punishment in the case of the land-owner, but imposes no limitation in the case of the laborer, is unconstitutional, as making a discrimination in the punishment which may be imposed.

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Laurens county; Aldkich, Judge.

Mr. Schurnpert, Sol., for the State. Ben-et & McGowan and Johnson & Richey, for defendant.

McIver, J. The defendant was indicted, under section 2084 of the General Statutes, for the violation of a written contract to serve the prosecutor as a laborer for the year 1889. The indictment, a copy of which is in the case, does not set out the contract alleged to have been violated; but the allegation, simply, is that the defendant "willfully, unlawfully, and maliciously did violate a certain written contract entered into on the twenty-fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, between the said Jule Williams, laborer, and one J C. Workman, landlord, and then and there did fail, willfully and without just cause, to give the labor reasonably required of him, the said Jule Williams, under the terms of said written contract, against the form of the statute, " etc. The defendant demurred to the indictment on the ground that the act under which it was drawn was unconstitutional, which demurrer was overruled; and, the trial proceeding, the solicitor, after proving the execution of the contract, a copy of which is set out in the case, by the subscribing witness, offered the same in evidence, and also offered evidence tending to show that defendant left the employment of the prosecutor on the 29th March, 1889, without just cause. The contract, omitting the formal parts, is in these words: "Workman agrees to give Williams the sum of ninety-five dollars for his services for the year 1889, giving me twenty-six days' work in each month for the twelve months beginning the first day of Jan., 1889. Williams agrees to work for C. J. Workman during the year 1889, giving him twenty-six days in each month, begin-ing the first day of Jan., 1889, for the sum of ninety-five dollars. " The defendant offered no...