The State v. Scullin-Gallagher Iron & Steel Co.
| Decision Date | 31 May 1916 |
| Citation | 186 S.W. 1007,268 Mo. 178 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. SCULLIN-GALLAGHER IRON & STEEL COMPANY, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction. -- Hon. Calvin N. Miller, Judge.
Affirmed.
Schnurmacher & Rassieur for appellant.
The act in question is a special law, although a general law might have been made applicable and it, therefore, violates sub-division 32 of section 53 of article 4 of the Constitution of Missouri. And since said act imposes certain burdens upon the owners of foundries, without imposing a similar burden upon other like establishments, where ten or more men are employed, it also violates sub-division 26 of section 53 of article 4. The act also violates section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that it unlawfully abridges the privileges and immunities of this defendant and denies it the equal protection of the laws. State v. Bottling Co., 261 Mo. 300; State ex inf. v. Southern, 265 Mo. 286; State v Baskowitz, 250 Mo. 82; State v. Miksicek, 225 Mo. 561; Woolley v. Mears, 226 Mo. 41; State ex rel. v. Ashbrook, 154 Mo. 375; State v. Thomas, 138 Mo. 100; State v. Walsh, 136 Mo. 405; State v. Julow, 129 Mo. 163; State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307.
John T Barker, Attorney-General, and Lee B. Ewing, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.
(1) Every act of the Legislature, duly passed, is presumed to be valid and constitutional. The burden is upon him who attacks its constitutionality to clearly show that it is violative of some constitutional provision. Ex parte Loving, 178 Mo. 203; State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo. 280; State v Aloe, 152 Mo. 477; Pike v. Thompson, 144 Mo. 322; State ex rel. v. Pike County, 144 Mo. 280; Railroad v. Andrews, 174 U.S. 96; Atkins v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 223. (2) Where there is doubt as to the constitutionality of an act, it will be resolved in favor of the validity of the act. No act of the Legislature will be deemed unconstitutional unless it appears so beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable minds might differ as to the constitutionality of legislation, it will be upheld as constitutional by the courts. State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo. 280; Ex parte Loving, 178 Mo. 321; State v. Abel, 65 Mo. 357; County v. Griswold, 58 Mo. 192; Coal Co. v. State, 17 L. R. A. 385; Atkins v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207; Railroad v. Williams, 199 N.Y. 127; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 123. (3) The expediency or inexpediency of an act is a question for the Legislature and not for the courts. The judiciary cannot inquire into motives and necessities which may have superinduced the passage of the act. Brown v. Cape Girardeau, 90 Mo. 383; County v. Griswold, 58 Mo. 192; State v. Hayes, 49 Mo. 604; Bennett v. Boggs, 1 Baldwin (U.S.), 74; Atkins v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113. (4) The act is not a special act but relates to all persons of the class mentioned therein. State ex rel. v. County Court, 128 Mo. 427; Eltinge v. Hickman, 172 Mo. 257; State v. Webber, 214 Mo. 277; State ex rel. v. Taylor, 224 Mo. 477; State v. Railroad, 229 Mo. 239; State ex inf. v. Southern, 265 Mo. 286; Railroad v. Arkansas, 219 U.S. 466. (5) The act is not class legislation. State v. Cantwell, 179 Mo. 254; Luther v. Saylor, 8 Mo.App. 424; Hammon v. Coal & Coke Co., 156 Mo. 232; State ex rel. v. Mercantile Co.; State v. Tower, 185 Mo. 19; State v. Swagerty, 203 Mo. 517; State v. Webber, 214 Mo. 272; State v. Miksicek, 225 Mo. 561; White v. Railroad, 230 Mo. 287; Advertisement Co. v. St. Louis, 235 Mo. 99; State v. Railroad, 242 Mo. 339; Embree v. Road Dist., 257 Mo. 593; Mueller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 410; Harbison v. Iron Co., 183 U.S. 13; People v. Lochner, 177 N.Y. 145; Ritchie v. Wayman, 224 Ill. 509. (6) In passing upon the constitutionality of a given act of the legislative department of the government, courts will give great weight to history of contemporaneous legislation upon such questions, and the fact that such legislation has long stood upon the statute books unchallenged is strongly persuasive of its constitutionality. The law is a progressive science and adapts itself to changing conditions. The Legislature is the representative body of the government, and, as all governmental power emannates from the people, this representative body has the right to declare the public policy of the State. Miller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 420; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U.S. 169; Coal Co. v. West Virginia, 17 L. R. A. 385; State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 324; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 387; McLane v. Arkansas, 211 U.S. 539; Ex parte Loving, 178 Mo. 202.
This suit, in the nature of a criminal proceeding, was instituted by information in the St. Louis Court of Criminal Correction against the defendant for failing to comply with an act of the General Assembly (Laws 1913, p. 401) requiring foundries to provide for their workmen certain sanitary conveniences described in the act. Upon a trial the defendant was found guilty and fined fifty dollars, from which it appeals. The constitutionality of the act is assailed, hence our jurisdiction. The portion of the act necessary to be considered is as follows:
"Every corporation, company or person in this State engaged in operating any foundry in which ten or more men are employed is hereby required to provide suitable toilet rooms, containing washbowls or sinks provided with running water, hot and cold, water closets connection with running water and a suitable room or place wherein the men may change their clothes, said room to be directly connected with the foundry building, properly heated, ventilated and protected with a suitable locker or place to properly change his clothing or wearing apparel."
The purpose of this statute is commendable. Primarily it is intended to improve the sanitary conditions under which a class of workmen labor. The nature of their employment, speaking from the commonly accepted knowledge of the vocation they pursue, of which we are entitled to take notice, is such that it subjects those engaged in it to extreme changes of temperature, exposure to dirt and danger, and demands great endurance. Laborers thus environed are entitled to the utmost exercise of the State's police power in their behalf, consonant with a reasonable interpretation of constitutional limitations. The enactment of laws of the character here under review must be such as upon a fair analysis will not subject the State to the charge of bestowing a favor. "The State," said a great commentator on constitutional law, "has no favors to bestow." [Cooley's Con. Lim (7 Ed.), p. 563.] Its purpose wisely directed is, while legislating for the betterment of its citizens, to so frame its laws as to inflict no arbitrary discriminations nor confer any privileges not common to the class included within the law. In thus exercising its police power it must of necessity classify the objects of legislation, and in such classification a wide range of discretion is not improper. [Fidelity Mut. Life Assn. v. Mettler, 185 U.S. 308, 46 L.Ed. 922, 22 S.Ct. 662.] A law enacted for the common good is to be liberally construed; and a like rule may, without violating the canons of construction, be applied within reasonable limitations to an enactment which extends only to a class.
In the construction of such a statute as we have here, certain well established rules are to be observed, to-wit: its enactment is accompanied by a presumption of validity, and the burden is on him who asserts to the contrary (Shohoney v. Railroad, 231 Mo. 131; State ex rel. v. Williams, 232 Mo. 56, 133 S.W. 1; State v. Parker Dist. Co., 236 Mo. 219, 139 S.W. 453; Miners' Bank v. Clark, 252 Mo. 20, 158 S.W. 597); every reasonable intendment must be made in favor of the validity of the statute, and its unconstitutionality must appear beyond a reasonable doubt (Bledsoe v. Stallard, 250 Mo. 154, 157 S.W. 77; Board of Commissioners v. Peter, 253 Mo. 520; State v. Buente, 256 Mo. 227, 165 S.W. 340); nor will courts inquire into the wisdom or expediency which prompted the enactment of the statute; this is for the Legislature (State v. Smith, 233 Mo. 242, 135 S.W. 465; Ex parte Welborn, 237 Mo. 297, 141 S.W. 31).
It is contended that the act in question is special in its application in that it is said to arbitrarily and unjustly make one of the many forms of industrial activity the object of legislation and thereby except others of the same natural class from its provisions. The concrete contention is that foundries are by the act subjected to regulations from which other employers of labor are by exclusion exempted; that the act, to have met the constitutional requirement against special legislation, should have been directed against "establishments" generally and not "foundries" particularly. This attempted generalization is too broad and would in its application render the law vague and indefinite. The word establishments means nothing more colloquially or legally than the word institutions. [Trustees of Academy v. Bohler, 80 Ga 159, 7 S.E. 633.] It is usually applied to concerns of a public nature and frequently includes the places where they are conducted as well as the physical things connected therewith. [Lane v. Smythe, 46 N.J.Eq. 443, 19 A. 199; Boon v. Moss, 70 N.Y. 465.] In the vernacular of the early French settlers of this State the word "establishment," the same as our English word establishment, meant nothing more than is implied by the word settlement. [Dent v. Bingham, 8 Mo. l. c. 579.] It is evident, therefore, that the word sought to be substituted for the word foundries, under the contention of appellant, if...
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