Liberty of contract which is protected against hostile state
legislation is not universal, but is subject to legislative
restrictions in the exercise of the police power of the state.
The police power of the state is not unlimited, and is subject
to judicial review, and laws arbitrarily and oppressively
exercising it may be annulled as violative of constitutional
rights.
The legislature of a state is primarily the judge of the
necessity of exercising the police power, and courts will only
interfere in case the act exceeds legislative authority; the fact
that the court doubts its wisdom or propriety affords no ground for
declaring a state law unconstitutional or invalid.
In the light of conditions surrounding their enactment, this
Court will not hold that the legislative acts requiring coal to be
measured for payment of miners' wages before screening are not
reasonable police regulations and within the police power of the
state, and so held that the Arkansas act so providing is not
unconstitutional under the
Page 211 U. S. 540
due process or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
It is not an unreasonable classification to divide coal mines
into those where less than ten miners are employed and those where
more than that number are employed, and a state police regulation
is not unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment because only applicable to mines where more
than ten miners are employed.
81 Ark. 304 affirmed.
The facts, which involved the constitutionality of the Arkansas
Coal Miners' Wages Act, are stated in the opinion.
Page 211 U. S. 542
MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This proceeding is brought to review the judgment of the Supreme
Court of Arkansas (81 Ark. 304) affirming a conviction of the
plaintiff in error for violation of a statute of the State of
Arkansas entitled
"An Act to Provide for the
Page 211 U. S. 543
Weighing of Coal Mined in the Arkansas as It Comes from the
Mine, and before It Is Passed over a Screen of Any Kind."
The act provides:
"SEC. 1. It shall be unlawful for any mine owner, lessee, or
operator of coal mines in this state, where ten or more men are
employed underground, employing miners at bushel or ton rates, or
other quantity, to pass the output of coal mined by said miners
over any screen or any other device which shall take any part from
the value thereof before the same shall have been weighed and duly
credited to the employee sending the same to the surface, and
accounted for at the legal rate of weights fixed by the laws of
Arkansas, and no employee, within the meaning of this act, shall be
deemed to have waived any right accruing to him under this section
by any contract he may make contrary to the provisions thereof, and
any provisions, contract, or agreement between mine owners,
lessees, or operators thereof, and the miners employed therein
whereby the provisions of this act are waived, modified, or
annulled shall be void and of no effect, and the coal sent to the
surface shall be accepted or rejected, and, if accepted, shall be
weighed in accordance with the provisions of this act, and right of
action shall not be invalidated by reason of any contract or
agreement, and any owner, agent, lessee, or operator of any coal
mine in this state, where ten or more men are employed underground,
who shall knowingly violate any of the provisions of this section,
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction,
shall be punished by a fine of not less than two hundred dollars
nor more than five hundred dollars for each offense, or by
imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not less than sixty
days, nor more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment,
and each day any mine or mines are operated thereafter shall be a
separate and distinct offense, proceedings to be instituted in any
court having competent jurisdiction."
Acts 1905, c. 219, § 1.
The case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts, as
follows:
Page 211 U. S. 544
"That the Bolen-Darnall Coal Company is a corporation organized
and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri, and is also
doing business under the laws of the State of Arkansas, and has
complied with the laws of Arkansas permitting foreign corporations
to transact and do business within said state."
"It is further agreed that John McLean, defendant, is the
managing agent of the said Bolen-Darnall Coal Company, and, as
such, has charge of the coal mine of said company situated near
Hartford, in Sebastian County, Arkansas."
"It is further agreed that the said Bolen-Darnall Coal Company
employs more than ten men to work underground in its mine situated
near Hartford, of which the said John McLean is agent and
manager."
"It is further agreed that the said Bolen-Darnall Coal Company,
by and through said John McLean, as its agent and manager, did, on
the 19th day of June, 1906, in Greenwood District of said Sebastian
County, employ one W. H. Dempsey and others, coal miners, to mine
coal underground in said mine by the ton at the rate and price of
90 cents per ton for screened coal, and that the said John McLean,
in the said district and county, did knowingly pass the output of
coal, so mined and sent up from underground by the said W. H.
Dempsey and others, over a screen, according to and as provided by
a contract between it and the said Dempsey and others, and paid the
said Dempsey and others for only the coal that passed over said
screen, according to and as provided under the contract, and paid
or allowed them nothing for the coal which passed through said
screen, part of the value of said coal having passed through said
screen, which part of said coal was not weighed or accredited to
the said Dempsey and others, and for which they received no pay,
said coal not having been weighed or accredited to the said Dempsey
or others before the same was passed over said screen, as provided
for by the statutes of Arkansas."
"It is further agreed the more than ten men were employed and
did work under said employment underground in mining
Page 211 U. S. 545
coal for the said Bolen-Darnall Coal Company in said mine
aforesaid at said time, and it is also agreed that there are coal
mines in said state and county operated by both corporations and
individuals in which less than ten men are employed underground by
the ton and bushel rates."
"It is further agreed that the said John McLean did violate the
provisions of section 1, Act No. 219, duly passed by the
Legislature of Arkansas in 1905, which law went into operation and
became effective on the 1st day of April, 1906, as hereinabove set
out, and the only question herein raised being the validity of said
act of the legislature aforesaid, under the law and facts
herein."
The objections to the judgment of the state supreme court of a
constitutional nature are twofold: first, that the statute is an
unwarranted invasion of the liberty of contract secured by the
Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States;
second, that the law, being applicable only to mines where more
than ten men are employed, is discriminatory, and deprives the
plaintiff in error of the equal protection of the laws, within the
inhibition of the same Amendment.
That the Constitution of the United States, in the Fourteenth
Amendment thereof, protects the right to make contracts for the
sale of labor, and the right to carry on trade or business, against
hostile state legislation, has been affirmed in decisions of this
Court, and we have no disposition to question those cases in which
the right has been upheld and maintained against such legislation.
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578;
Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161.
But, in many cases in this Court, the right of freedom of contract
has been held not to be unlimited in its nature, and when the right
to contract or carry on business conflicts with laws declaring the
public policy of the state, enacted for the protection of the
public health, safety, or welfare, the same may be valid,
notwithstanding they have the effect to curtail or limit the
freedom of contract. It would extend this opinion beyond reasonable
limits to make reference to all the cases in this Court in which
qualifications
Page 211 U. S. 546
of the right of freedom of contract have been applied and
enforced. Some of them are collected in
Holden v. Hardy,
169 U. S. 366, in
which it was held that the hours of work in mines might be
limited.
In
Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S.
13, it was held that an act of the Legislature of
Tennessee requiring the redemption in cash of store orders or other
evidences of indebtedness issued by employers in payment of wages
due to employees did not conflict with any provisions of the
Constitution of the United States protecting the right of
contract.
In
Frisbie v. United States, 157 U.
S. 160, the act of Congress prohibiting attorneys from
contracting for a larger fee than $10.00 for prosecuting pension
claims was held to be a valid exercise of police power.
In
Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.
S. 703, a statute of California making it unlawful for
employees to work in laundries between the hours of 10 P.M. and 6
A.M. was sustained.
The statute fixing maximum charges for the storage of grain, and
prohibiting contracts for larger amounts, was held valid.
Munn
v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113.
In
Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U.
S. 169, this Court held that an act of Congress making
it a misdemeanor for a shipmaster to pay a sailor any part of his
wages in advance was held to be valid.
In
Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U.
S. 183, this Court summarized the doctrine as
follows:
"Regulations respecting the pursuit of a lawful trade or
business are of very frequent occurrence in the various cities of
the country, and what such regulations shall be and to what
particular trade, business, or occupation they shall apply are
questions for the state to determine, and their determination comes
within the proper exercise of the police power by the state, and,
unless the regulations are so utterly unreasonable and extravagant
in their nature and purpose that the property and personal rights
of the citizen are unnecessarily, and in a manner wholly arbitrary,
interfered with or destroyed
Page 211 U. S. 547
without due process of law, they do not extend beyond the power
of the state to pass, and they form no subject for federal
interference."
In
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S.
11, this Court said:
"The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to
every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute
right in each person to be at all times, and in all circumstances,
wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which
every person is necessarily subject for the common good."
It is, then, the established doctrine of this Court that the
liberty of contract is not universal, and is subject to
restrictions passed by the legislative branch of the government in
the exercise of its power to protect the safety, health, and
welfare of the people.
It is also true that the police power of the state is not
unlimited, and is subject to judicial review, and, when exerted in
an arbitrary or oppressive manner, such laws may be annulled as
violative of rights protected by the Constitution. While the courts
can set aside legislative enactments upon this ground, the
principles upon which such interference is warranted are as well
settled as is the right of judicial interference itself.
The legislature, being familiar with local conditions, is
primarily the judge of the necessity of such enactments. The mere
fact that a court may differ with the legislature in its views of
public policy, or that judges may hold views inconsistent with the
propriety of the legislation in question, affords no ground for
judicial interference unless the act in question is unmistakably
and palpably in excess of legislative power.
Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11;
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623;
Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313,
136 U. S. 320;
Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207,
191 U. S.
223.
If the law in controversy has a reasonable relation to the
protection of the public health, safety, or welfare, it is not to
be set aside because the judiciary may be of opinion that the act
will fail of its purpose, or because it is thought to be an
Page 211 U. S. 548
unwise exertion of the authority vested in the legislative
branch of the government.
We take it that there is no dispute about the fundamental
propositions of law which we have thus far stated; the difficulties
and differences of opinion arise in their application to the facts
of a given case. Is the act in question an arbitrary interference
with the right of contract, and is there no reasonable ground upon
which the legislature, acting within its conceded powers, could
pass such a law? Looking to the law itself, we find its curtailment
of the right of free contract to consist in the requirement that
the coal mined shall not be passed over any screen where the miner
is employed at quantity rates whereby any part of the value thereof
is taken from it before the same shall have been weighed and
credited to the employee sending the same to the surface, and the
coal is required to be accounted for according to the legal rate of
weights, as fixed by the law of Arkansas, and contracts contrary to
this provision are invalid. This law does not prevent the operator
from screening the coal before it is sent to market; it does not
prevent a contract for mining coal by the day, week, or month; it
does not prevent the operator from rejecting coal improperly or
negligently mined, and shown to be unduly mingled with dirt or
refuse. The objection upon the ground of interference with the
right of contract rests upon the inhibition of contracts which
prevent the miner employed at quantity rates from contracting for
wages upon the basis of screened coal, instead of the weight of the
coal as originally produced in the mine.
If there existed a condition of affairs concerning which the
legislature of the state, exercising its conceded right to enact
laws for the protection of the health, safety, or welfare of the
people, might pass the law, it must be sustained; if such action
was arbitrary interference with the right to contract or carry on
business, and having no just relation to the protection of the
public within the scope of legislative power, the act must
fail.
While such laws have not been uniformly sustained when
Page 211 U. S. 549
brought before the state courts, the legislatures of a number of
the states have deemed them necessary in the public interests Such
laws have been passed in Illinois, West Virginia, Colorado, and
perhaps in other states. In Illinois, they have been condemned as
unconstitutional.
Ramsey v. People, 142 Ill. 380. The same
conclusion has been reached in Colorado, citing and following the
Illinois case,
In re House Bill No. 203, 21 Colo. 27.
In West Virginia, while at first sustained by a unanimous court,
such an act was afterwards, upon rehearing, maintained by a divided
court.
State v. Peel Splint Coal Co., 36 W.Va. 802.
We are not disposed to discuss these state cases. It is enough
for our present purpose to say that the legislative bodies of the
states referred to, in the exercise of the right of judgment
conferred upon them, have deemed such laws to be necessary.
Conditions which may have led to such legislation were the
subject of very full investigation by the industrial commission
authorized by Congress by the Act of June 18, 1898. 30 Stat. 476,
c. 466. Volume 12 of the report of that commission is devoted to
the subject of "Capital and Labor Employed in the Mining Industry."
In that investigation, as the report shows, many witnesses were
called and testified concerning the conditions of the mining
industry in this country, and a number of them gave their views as
to the use of screens as a means of determining the compensation to
be paid operatives in coal mines. Differences of opinion were
developed in the testimony. Some witnesses favored the "run of the
mine" system, by which the coal is weighed and paid for in the form
in which it is originally mined; others thought the screens useful
in the business, promotive of skilled mining, and that they worked
no practical discrimination against the miner. A number of the
witnesses expressed opinions, based upon their experience in the
mining industry, that disputes concerning the introduction and use
of screens had led to frequent and sometimes heated controversies
between the operators and the miners. This condition was
Page 211 U. S. 550
testified to have been the result not only of the introduction
of screens as a basis of paying the miners for screened coal only,
but, after the screens had been introduced, differences had arisen
because of the disarrangement of the parts of the screen, resulting
in weakening it, or in increasing the size of the meshes through
which the coal passed, thereby preventing a correct measurement of
the coal as the basis of paying the miner's wages.
We are unable to say, in the light of the conditions shown in
the public inquiry referred to, and in the necessity for such laws,
evinced in the enactments of the legislatures of various states,
that this law had no reasonable relation to the protection of a
large class of laborers in the receipt of their just dues and in
the promotion of the harmonious relations of capital and labor
engaged in a great industry in the state.
Laws tending to prevent fraud and to require honest weights and
measures in the transaction of business have frequently been
sustained in the courts, although, in compelling certain modes of
dealing, they interfere with the freedom of contract. Many cases
are collected in Mr. Freund's book on "Police Power," § 274,
wherein that author refers to laws which have been sustained,
regulating the size of loaves of bread when sold in the market;
requiring the sale of coal in quantities of 500 pounds or more, by
weight; that milk shall be sold in wine measure, and kindred
enactments.
Upon this branch of the case, it is argued for the validity of
this law that its tendency is to require the miner to be honestly
paid for the coal actually mined and sold. It is insisted that the
miner is deprived of a portion of his just due when paid upon the
basis of screened coal because, while the price may be higher, and
theoretically he may be compensated for all the coal mined in the
price paid him for screened coal, that practically, owing to the
manner of the operation of the screen itself, and its different
operation when differently adjusted, or when out of order, the
miner is deprived of payment for the coal which he has actually
mined. It is not denied that the
Page 211 U. S. 551
coal which passes through the screen is sold in the market. It
is not for us to say whether these are actual conditions. It is
sufficient to say that it was a situation brought to the attention
of the legislature, concerning which it was entitled to judge and
act for itself in the exercise of its lawful power to pass remedial
legislation.
The law is attacked upon the further ground that it denies the
equal protection of the law in that it is applicable only to mines
employing ten or more men. This question is closely analogous to
one that was before this Court in the case of
St. Louis
Consolidated Coal Co. v. Illinois, 185 U.
S. 203, wherein an inspection law of the state was
argued to be clearly unconstitutional by reason of its limitation
to mines where more than five men are employed at any one time, and
in that case, as in this, it was contended that the classification
was arbitrary and unreasonable -- that there was no just reason for
the discrimination. Of that contention this Court said (p.
185 U. S.
207):
"This is a species of classification which the legislature is at
liberty to adopt, provided it be not wholly arbitrary or
unreasonable, as it was in
Cotting v. Kansas City Stock Yards
Co., 183 U. S. 79, in which an act
defining what should constitute public stockyards and regulating
all charges connected therewith was held to be unconstitutional
because it applied only to one particular company, and not to other
companies or corporations engaged in a like business in Kansas, and
thereby denied to that company the equal protection of the laws. In
the case under consideration, there is no attempt arbitrarily to
select one mine for inspection, but only to assume that mines which
are worked upon so small a scale as to require only five operatives
would not be likely to need the careful inspection provided for the
larger mines, where the workings were carried on upon a larger
scale or at a greater depth from the surface, and where a much
larger force would be necessary for their successful operation. It
is quite evident that a mine which is operated by only five men
could scarcely have passed the experimental stage, or that
precautions necessary in the operation
Page 211 U. S. 552
of coal mines of ordinary magnitude would be required in such
cases. There was clearly reasonable foundation for a discrimination
here."
This language is equally apposite in the present case. There is
no attempt at unjust or unreasonable discrimination. The law is
alike applicable to all mines in the state employing more than ten
men underground. It may be presumed to practically regulate the
industry when conducted on any considerable scale. We cannot say
that there was no reason for exempting from its provisions mines so
small as to be in the experimental or formative state, and
affecting but few men, and not requiring regulation in the interest
of the public health, safety, or welfare. We cannot hold,
therefore, that this law is so palpably in violation of the
constitutional rights involved as to require us, in the exercise of
the right of judicial review, to reverse the judgment of the
Supreme Court of Arkansas which has affirmed its validity. The
judgment of that court is
Affirmed.
Dissenting: MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM.