DECISIONS OF COURTS AFFECTING LABOR.

[Except in cases of special interest, the decisions here presented are restricted to those rendered by the Federal courts and the higher courts of the States and Territories. Only material portions of such decisions are reproduced, introductory and explanatory matter being given in the words of the editor. Decisions under statutory law are indexed under the proper headings in the cumulative index, page 783 et seq.].

DECISIONS UNDER STATUTORY LAW.

BLACKLISTING-COMBINING TO PREVENT EMPLOYMENT-CONSTI TUTIONALITY OF STATUTE--Joyce v. Great Northern Railway Company (two cases), Supreme Court of Minnesota, 110 Northwestern Reporter, page 975.-Thomas S. Joyce sued the railroad company on two separate causes of action-one for injuries to his person, caused by the alleged negligence of the company and its employees, and one for the wrongful and unlawful conduct of the company in preventing the said Joyce from obtaining employment with the Union Depot Company of St. Paul. Only the latter case presents matter of special interest.

The Union Depot Company is a separate corporation, owning and operating a union station in the city of St. Paul, into which the trains of the Great Northern Railway run. Joyce's action was based on the act of 1895, chapter 174, which prohibits blacklisting or other combinations between employers to prevent workmen from obtaining employment, but his case was dismissed in the district court of Ramsey County, whereupon he appealed to the supreme court.

Judge Brown, for the court, delivered an opinion sustaining the law and Joyce's right of action thereunder, and granting a new trial. A syllabus prepared by the court sets forth both the facts and the law in the case, and the paragraphs relating to this cause of action are reproduced herewith:

1. Rev. Laws 1905, sec. 5097, declaring it unlawful for two or more employers of labor to combine or confer together for the purpose of preventing any person from procuring employment, construed, and held. a valid legislative enactment.

2. If one employer by conference with another employer prevents, without excuse or justification, a third person from procuring employment with such other employer, he is liable for damages under the statute to the person so interfered with.

3. A malicious motive or purpose is essential to give rise to a cause of action under the statute; not actual malice, but such as the law implies from the fact that the act complained of was unlawful and without justification.

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4. Plaintiff had been in the employ of the Union Depot Company as a track repairer. He was injured while engaged in the discharge of his duties by being struck by a switch engine of defendant, then being operated in the depot company's yards. On recovering from his injury, he sought reemployment of the depot company. Defendant interfered, and by its act induced the depot company to refuse him further employment, except upon the condition that he release defendant from all claim for damages on account of his injury. He declined to release his claim, and the depot company, in consequence of the interference of defendant and plaintiff's refusal to release, refused to reemploy him. Held, That the act of defendant, on the evidence disclosed, was a violation of the statute, and constituted, unexplained by matters in justification, an actionable tort, and the question should have been submitted to the jury under the second cause of action.

BOYCOTTS-COMBINATIONS IN RESTRAINT OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE-Loewe v. Lawlor, United States Circuit Court, District of Connecticut, 148 Federal Reporter, page 924.-Lawlor and his associates were members of a local branch of the United Hatters of North America, and had undertaken to compel the plaintiffs to unionize their factory. To this end they withdrew from employment in such factory and prevented, as far as they could, others from taking service therein. They also sought to curtail, and, if possible, to destroy the trade of plaintiffs in other States. The plaintiffs allege that these efforts have resulted in an interference with interstate commerce, in violation of the Sherman antitrust act, prohibiting combinations in restraint of such commerce, and entered a complaint based on this allegation. The complaint was demurred to on general grounds as well as in detail. It was on a consideration of the former, however, that it was dismissed for reasons that appear from the following quotation from the opinion of the court, which was delivered by Judge Platt:

There is no allegation which suggests that the means of transporting plaintiff's product, or the product itself while being transported, were touched, handled, obstructed, or in any manner actually interfered with. There is no allegation that the defendants are in any way engaged in interstate commerce. The argument for the plaintiff's is that by entering into a scheme to curtail the production at home, and the distribution by customers abroad, the defendants have formed a combination to limit and restrain plaintiffs' trade between the two points, which is interstate trade, and that such restraint is the direct, positive, and inevitable result of the general scheme. The manufacture of the hats before they leave the factory in Danbury is not interstate commerce, nor are the hats themselves up to that time the subject of interstate commerce. The distribution of the hats from the hands of the customers in other States to the ultimate consumer is not interstate commerce, nor are the hats themselves during such distribution the subject of interstate commerce.

The real question is whether a combination which undertakes to interfere simultaneously with both actions is one which directly affects the transportation of the hats from the place of manufacture to the place of sale. It is not perceived that the Supreme Court has as yet so broadened the interpretation of the Sherman act (Act July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3200]), that it will fit such an order of facts as this complaint presents.

EIGHT-HOUR LAW-CONSTITUTIONALITY—INDEFINITENESS OF LANGUAGE-State v. Livingston Concrete Building and Manufacturing Conpany, Supreme Court of Montana, 87 Pacific Reporter, page 980.This case was before the supreme court of Montana on an appeal from the district court of Park County. The defendant company had been accused of violating the so-called eight-hour law, and, on the claim. that the law was unconstitutional, had obtained a ruling in its favor. The State appealed and secured a reversal of the judgment of the lower court, the statute being held constitutional by the supreme

court.

The following quotations from the opinion of Judge Holloway, who spoke for the court, present the principal grounds on which this conclusion was reached:

The information states facts sufficient to constitute a public offense, if chapter 50 above is a valid legislative enactment capable of being enforced; but on behalf of respondent it is urged (1) that the act is so indefinite as to be incapable of enforcement, and (2) that, even if sufficiently definite, the act is unconstitutional and void.

The provisions of chapter 50, above, are as follows:

"SECTION 1. A period of eight (8) hours shall constitute a day's work on all works or undertakings carried on or aided by any municipal, county or State government, and on all contracts let by them, and in mills and smelters for the treatment of ores, and in underground mines.

"SEC. 2. Every person, corporation, stock company or association of persons who violate any of the provisions of section one (1) of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100) nor more than five hundred ($500) dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than thirty days nor more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

1. It is said that the statute is too indefinite to be enforceable, in that (1) it can not be determined whether it intends to impose the penalty prescribed upon the man who works less than eight hours in a day, or upon the man who works more than eight hours in a day, or upon both; (2) it can not be determined whether it is intended to punish the employer, the employee, or both; and (3) it is so indefinite that, in fact, it can not be said to forbid the employment of a laborer for more than eight hours in a day. While it may be conceded that the intention of the lawmakers might have been expressed in plainer terms, we can not hold a solemn legislative enactment of no force or effect because of the indefinite language in which it is couched, unless

we find ourselves unable to divine the purpose or intent of the legislature. (Hochheimer, Criminal Law (2d Ed.) Sec. 28.) For, after all, the function of the court is to determine and make known, if possible, such purpose or intent; for the intention of the legislature is the essence of the law. In Edwards v. Morton, 92 Tex. 152, 46 S. W. ' 792, it is said: "The intention of the legislature in enacting a law is the law itself, and must be enforced when ascertained." In Manhattan Co. v. Kaldenberg, 165 N. Y. 1, 58 N. E. 790, it is said: "In construing statutes the proper course is to start out and follow the true intent of the legislature, and to adopt that sense which harmonizes best with the context, and promotes in the fullest manner the apparent policy and objects of the legislature." (2 Lewis' Sutherland on Statutory Construction (2d Ed.) Sec. 363.)

(1) The history of labor legislation makes clear the evil to suppress which such statutes are enacted. It is the continuous employment of workingmen for such length of time as to imperil their lives or health that is sought to be avoided, and, in the interest of the general welfare of its citizens, the State undertakes to correct the evil as far as it may; or it may have been the purpose of the State to stamp with its approval the view now entertained by many, that, all things considered, the general welfare of workingmen, upon whom rests a portion of the burdens of government, will be best subserved if labor performed for eight hours continuously be taken as the measure of a full day's work; that the restriction of a day's work to that number of hours will so far promote the morality and improve the physical and intellectual condition of workingmen as to enable them the better to discharge the duties of citizenship. With these objects in view, it can not be supposed that the legislature intended to impose punishment upon every laborer engaged in any of the designated employments who fails to work for the full period of eight hours in every working-day. But, on the other hand, it is apparent that the object and purpose in view were to prevent the employment of a laborer in any of such employments for more than eight hours in a day; that number of hours of continuous labor being fixed by the statute as the maximum for a day's work.

(2) As it is the purpose of the statute to conserve the health and promote the happiness of the workingman-not to curtail his capacity to earn money or to set bounds upon the greed of his employer-the statute is written in terms broad enough to include within its inhibition both the employer and the employee. The language is: "Every person, corporation, stock company or association of persons who violates any of the provisions of section one of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor," etc. In Short v. Bullion-Beck & C. N. Co., 20 Utah 20, 57 Pac. 720, 45 L. R. A. 603 [Bulletin No. 24, p. 729], a similar statute of the State of Utah was considered, and it was there held that the statute applies both to the employer and employee, and that the protection which the State throws around the citizen by the enactment of such a law can not be waived even by the employee, the person for whose benefit the statute is primarily enacted. We do not think that in this respect the statute is at all indefinite, but, on the contrary, the meaning of the language employed seems to be plain. (3) It is said that the statute does not in terms prohibit the workingman from engaging in any of the designated employments for more than eight hours in a day, nor does it specifically prohibit the employer

from hiring him to do so, and that, in fact, at most, the statute does not do more than define a working day. But the courts have not had difficulty in reaching an altogether different conclusion. * * * The declared purpose of our statute is to impose a penalty upon every one who violates the provisions of section 1 of the act. And how may those provisions be violated? Manifestly in no other way than by the employee working more than eight hours in a day in any of the designated employments, or by the employer causing him to do The information in this case charges that the defendant company did unlawfully and willfully cause, suffer, and permit its servants to work for a longer period than eight hours in a day, and, if this be true, there was a clear violation of the statute by the defendant company; and it was no less a crime that its servants might also be equally guilty of the same offense.

so.

In this connection it is said that the statute is exceedingly harsh and arbitrary, in that it limits the number of hours of labor, even though the employee is working by the hour and paid according to the number of hours he works. But, when the purpose of the law is kept in mind, we think this criticism can not be made. The object of the law is to conserve the health and promote the happiness of the workingmen by such reasonable regulations as will save them in the one instance from overwork, and, in the other, afford them ample time for rest, recreation, and their physical and mental improvement; and therefore it is quite immaterial whether the labor is performed by the day or by the hour. Its object is to limit the nuniber of hours of labor in a day so far as the State may do so. The same criticism might be made of many other public statutes. Every law is a restraint upon some one, and the question of its harshness is only a relative one, depending largely upon the disposition of the person restrained, or the character of the business in which he is engaged.

It is further urged that the statute is harsh, in that no provision is made for cases of emergency where life or property is in peril; and it may be conceded that the act would be more consonant with our ideas of a reasonable regulation if provisions had been made for such emergencies. But neither of these criticisms affects the validity of the act. If it was the legislative will that no exception be made to the rule announced, the courts can not say that a different policy should have been pursued. In fact, these objections only raise the question of legislative policy, with which the courts have nothing to do, unless it should be made to appear that in its operation the act would be so unreasonable that it could not be supposed that the legislature ever intended it to have such effect. (20 Enc. Law (2d Ed.) 599.) Whether this statute in its operation will in fact prove to be harsh can only be determined by experience, and a probability that it will do so is not sufficient to condemn the act in advance.

We are not called upon in this connection to decide whether or not, in the event a workingman had practically completed his eight hours of work upon one of the designated employments, and some emergency should suddenly arise whereby life or property was placed in imminent danger, such employee might not prolong his labor beyond the allotted time without violating the spirit of the statute. That question is not presented in this case, and it is therefore not considered nor decided.