Weil v. State

• Decision Date: 21 May 1889
• Citation: 21 N.E. 643,46 Ohio St. 450
• Parties: WEIL v. STATE.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

21 N.E. 643

46 Ohio St. 450

WEIL v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

May 21, 1889

Motion for leave to file petition in error to reverse the judgment of the circuit court of Hamilton county.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The act passed May 4, 1885, (82 Ohio Laws, 238,) entitled ‘ An act to regulate conditional rates and sales of personal property, and provide for filing instruments pertaining to the same with certain officers, and making a violation thereof a misdemeanor,’ is not in conflict with either section 16 or 19 of article 1, or section 16 or 28 of article 2, of the constitution.

2. The second section of the act, which makes it unlawful for the vendor of personal property sold as therein specified, to take possession of such property, without tendering or refunding to the purchaser the sum paid by him, ‘ after deducting therefrom a reasonable compensation for the use of such property,’ is not invalid on the ground that the amount of such compensation is uncertain, and no method is provided by the act for determining the same.

Baker & Goodhue , for the motion.

Swartz, Littleford & Wright, contra.

WILLIAMS, J.

At the April term, 1888, of the court of common pleas of Hamilton county, Sol. Weil was indicted for a violation of the act of May 4, 1885, (82 Ohio Laws, 238,) entitled ‘ An act to regulate conditional rates and sales of personal property and to provide for filing instruments pertaining to the same with certain officers, and making a violation thereof a a misdemeanor.’ After a demurrer filed by him to the indictment had been overruled, he entered a plea of guilty; and, sentence being then passed upon him as provided by the statute, he prosecuted error to the circuit court, where the judgment was affirmed. The motion for leave to file a petition in error in this court is submitted, it is said in argument, ‘ to test the constitutionality of the statute.’

It is first suggested, rather than contended, that the act is without force, because that clause of section 16, art. 2, of the constitution, which provides that ‘ no bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title,’ has been disregarded. If it be conceded that the clause referred to has not been strictly observed, yet it has been so often and uniformly held by this court that it relates only to bills in their progress through the general assembly, and is directory merely, being a rule prescribed for that body, to which the supervision of its observance is left. Pim v. Nicholson, 6 Ohio St. 176; State v. Covington, 29 Ohio St. 102; Oshe v. State, 37 Ohio St. 494. The suggeston of the invalidity of the statute on this ground, therefore, does not demand further consideration.

To the first section of the statute no objection is made. That section, in substance, provides that in all cases where personal property is sold to be paid for in installments, or let, hired, or delivered, subject to a condition that the title shall remain in the vendor, lessor, hirer, or deliverer, until payment of the sum or amount agreed on therefor, the condition shall be void as to subsequent purchasers, mortgagees in good faith, and creditors, unless it is in writing, and verified and filed as chattel mortgages are required to be. The second and third sections of the act are as follows: ‘ Sec. 2. Whenever such property is so sold or leased, rented, hired, or delivered, it shall be unlawful for the vendor, lessor, renter, hirer, or deliverer, or his or their agent or servant, to take possession of said property without tendering or refunding to the purchaser, lessee, renter, or hirer thereof, or any party receiving the same, the sum or sums of money so paid, after deducting therefrom a reasonable compensation for the use of such property, which shall in no case exceed fifty per cent. of the amount so paid, anything in the contract to the contrary notwithstanding, and whether such condition be expressed in such contract or not, unless such property has been broken or actually damaged, and then a reasonable compensation for such breakage or damage shall be allowed. Sec. 3. Any person violatting any of the provisions of section two of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not more than one hundred dollars.’

These two sections, it is contended, violate (1) that clause of section 28 of article 2 of the constitution which denies to the general assembly power to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts; (2) the section of the bill of rights declaring the inviolability of private property; and (3) those provisions of the constitution which vest the judicial power of the state in courts, and require that ‘ all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law.’

1. Does the statute impair the obligation of contracts? It does not in terms purport to operate retrospectively, or apply to contracts entered into before its enactment, but only to those made after it took effect. The obligation of a contract is the duty which the law at the time of making it imposes upon the parties. As was said by Justice WASHINGTON, in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, ‘ the law of the contract forms its obligation.’ Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, page (346,) says: ‘ The obligation of a contract * * * depends on the laws in existence when it is made. These are necessarily referred to in all contracts, and forming a part of them as the measure of the obligation to perform them by the one party, and the right acquired by the other.’ In an interesting discussion of this subject in Smith v. Parsons, 1 Ohio 236 it is said by BURNET, J., in the opinion of the court, that ‘ the legislature has a right by law to regulate contracts, to determine their effect, and point out the mode of their discharge. These laws are applied to all subsequent engagements, and fix the rights of the parties at the very instant the contract is closed, so that the contract, in its inception, receives an impress from the law, and the effect of the law, being co-existent with the contract, can never be said to alter or impair it. It continues what it was at its commencement; and it is more correct to say that the law has in part made the contract than that it has changed it. Persons contracting after the passage of the statute could not know the law as one impairing the obligation of contracts in the sense of the constitution, but as an act regulating future contracts, and defining the effect.’ The learned judge further says: ‘ Instead of determining the...