The King v. Tong Lee

• Decision Date: 27 December 1880
• Citation: 4 Haw. 335
• Parties: THE KING v. TONG LEE.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

4 Haw. 335

THE KING v. TONG LEE.

Supreme Court of Kingdom of Hawai'i.

December 27, 1880

October Term, 1880.

ON APPEAL FROM THE POLICE COURT ON POINT OF LAW.

Syllabus by the Court

AN ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE providing for the erection of public laundries, forbidding the carrying on of the business of laundry keeping or washing for hire within a circuit of three miles from the junction of Nuuanu and King streets, in Honolulu, is an exercise of the police powers of the State with regard to the comfort, welfare and safety of society and is constitutional.

Hon. W N. Armstrong, Attorney General, and Mr. E. Preston, Deputy Attorney General, with him, for the Crown.

Messrs Castle & Hatch for defendant.

Harris C. J., Judd and McCully, J.J.

OPINION

JUDD, J.

At the last session of the Legislative Assembly the following Act was passed:

AN ACT RELATING TO LAUNDRIES AND WASH-HOUSES.

Whereas, the increasing number of laundries and wash-houses within the limits of the City of Honolulu tends to the propagation and dissemination of disease; and

Whereas, it is advisable that all laundries and wash-houses should be placed under the control and inspection of the Board of Health; therefore

Be it enacted by the King and the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands in the Legislature of the Kingdom assembled:

Section 1. It shall be lawful for, and the Minister of the Interior is hereby authorized and empowered to cause to be built and erected, on the banks of the stream known as the " Makaho stream, " on the land called " Kaliukai, " a sufficient number of laundries and wash-houses, and to let the same to such persons applying therefor, at such rents and upon such terms as the said Minister shall deem reasonable.

Sec. 2. Such laundries and wash-houses when erected shall be under the supervision and control of the Board of Health.

Sec. 3. From and after the commencement of this Act, every person who shall carry on the business of laundry keeping or washing for hire, within the limits of the City of Honolulu, except in such buildings as shall be erected as provided by Section 1 of this Act, shall be liable to a fine of fifty dollars for each and every day, or part of a day, during which he shall so carry on such business, and in default of payment of such fine shall be imprisoned at hard labor until such fine is paid.

Sec. 4. The City of Honolulu, for the purpose of this Act, shall be deemed to be included within a circuit of three miles from the junction of Nuuanu and King streets.

Sec. 5. Nothing in this Act contained shall be deemed or construed to prevent persons washing in or on the banks of streams, in places hitherto used for that purpose.

Sec. 6. This Act shall take effect and become a law on the first day of October next.

On the 9th of October the defendant Tong Lee was charged in the Police Court with the violation of this law. He plead guilty to the carrying on of a laundry and wash-house within the limits designated in this Act, and urged that the Act was unconstitutional and void. The Police Justice imposed the statutory penalty, and the defendant appealed to the Supreme Court in Banco.

PER CURIAM.

The Act has many peculiar features which have attracted our attention.

1. The preamble recites that the " increasing number of laundries and wash-houses within the limits of the City of Honolulu tends to the propagation and dissemination of disease." It does not declare the washing of clothes and the allowing of the contaminated water therefrom to accumulate where it may propagate and disseminate disease, to be dangerous to the public health and therefore a nuisance, but it enacts that the increasing number of such houses tends to the propagation of disease, suggesting that the Legislature contemplated not so much the past or present danger to the public health as the liability that the increasing number of these houses would produce disease.

2. The second section of the Act places the laundries and wash-houses authorized to be erected by Section 1 of the Act " under the supervision and control of the Board of Health."

If the law means such a supervision and control of the business of washing as may be necessary to protect the public health, then the grant of such power would seem to be superfluous, as Chapter 59 of the Penal Code confers the power upon the Board " to enter upon any land, building or vessel for the purpose of examining into and destroying, removing or preventing any nuisance or source of filth." The Board of Health had, by the general law previous to the passage of this Act, all the power over this business of washing as well as over other enterprises necessary to enable it to carry out its functions as guardians of the public health.

3. Washing clothes within the limits prescribed by the law is not prohibited. This washing must be made a business of, that is, it must be pursued as an occupation for gain or hire to make it punishable. It is urged before us that it is unreasonable and illogical to say that the business of washing is of itself harmless and innocuous, but when the occupation is pursued for hire as a means of livelihood it then becomes dangerous to the public health. The health of the individual demands cleanliness of apparel, and it is undoubtedly the right of every individual to have his apparel cleansed by washing. Why, then, should this essential domestic function be condemned by the law when it is pursued for hire? It is suggested in answer that a larger amount of filth detrimental to the public health will be likely to be accumulated in the water used in public than in private laundries. This is not at all clear. The laundrying of the principal hotel in this city is probably greater than that of many public laundries or wash-houses. One is forbidden, the other is not.

If it be a question of degree alone which makes this business dangerous or not to the public health, the Legislature could have prescribed the number of persons whose washing could be done in any one locality, beyond which it was to be considered dangerous; but the extent to which this occupation can be pursued and yet be harmless is not defined by the statute. The only limit in the law is that washing for hire is considered noxious; all other washing is not, be the same more or less.

Laundries are necessary in every country, and the greater the population the greater their number. They are not manifestly and palpably nuisances. With proper drainage or sewerage whereby to dispose of the contaminated water and soapsuds, a laundry is far from being unwholesome or capable of affecting the public health. The want of sewerage in this town of Honolulu was undoubtedly the ground for the enactment of this law.

The proper disposition of the contaminated water from either public or private laundries is a legitimate matter for the regulation of the Board of Health.

4. The City of Honolulu has no limits prescribed by law. The District of Honolulu extends from Maunalua to Moanalua. But the Act under contemplation establishes the limits of the city for the purposes of this Act to be a circuit of three miles from the junction of Nuuanu and King streets. The well populated portions of the town of Honolulu do not extend beyond one mile from this point in any direction. Within one mile from this point are slaughter-houses and soap factories, occupations presumably offensive and deleterious to the public health.

All these points have been urged before the Court with great earnestness, and would appear to us to be powerful arguments if used on the floor of the Legislature against the passage of such a law.

But the Legislature deemed that the existing statutes did not give the Board of Health authority sufficiently ample to protect the public health, and found it...