5 Ga. App. 256 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1908
According to the record, Aldrich, the exemption of whose wages from garnishment is the subject-matter of the present controversy, “at the time of suing out such summons of garnishment, was employed by the Southern Cotton-Oil Company at a salary of $75 per month, said salary being paid semi-monthly,, there being no time fixed for the termination of the contract of service, as stenographer for C. D. Jordan, assistant manager for
Judge Charlton, whose decision is under review, has prepared a charming opinion which appears in the record. It is worth reproduction, and will be quoted in lieu of any further discussion of the question on our part. It is as follows: “C. D. Cohen brought his action in the justice court for the third district, G. M., against E. M. Aldrich, to recover $35, with interest, alleged to be due on a promissory note, garnishment issuing against the Southern Cotton-Oil Company. On the return day the defendant claimed exemption from garnishment, on the ground that he was a stenographer, and therefore a laborer. It appears, from an agreed statement of facts, that Aldrich was employed by the Cotton-Oil Company at a salary of-$75 a month, payable semi-monthly, no time being fixed for the termination of the contract of service; that he
“Is a stenographer — one who receives letters and transcribes the same, preserves office records, addresses and mails letters, and pierforms generally the duties of amanuensis to the assistant manager of a corporation — the kind of laborer whose wages are exempt under the statute? Or are the duties and the occupation so distinctively mental as to exclude the fair inference of manual work ? In time our Supreme Court has held that locomotive engineers, street-railroad conductors and motormen, clerks in retail stores, railroad clerks, bookkeepers, public-school teachers, farm-hands, painters, bartenders, are laborers. In the case of Abrahams v. Anderson, 80 Ga. 570, practically the identical question now before the court came up for determination. Anderson, whose wages were sought to be subjected, received $125 a month, no time being fixed for the termination of the contract. He was 'private secretary and stenographer to the president of a railroad company. It was
“But it is urged that stenography is an ‘art,’ a skilful employment, the result of special study and training, and that proficiency in it is the result of steady practice and experience. This is true of everything the result of which, when done, commends itself. Proficiency comes to the bricklayer and carpenter and blacksmith from steady practice and experience, and unless they specially study and train, the work they do is not apt to appeal to the unfortunate who has to pa}' for it. Special study and training and steady practice and experience do not of themselves make arts. Under our garnishment statute, the true distinction is, does mental labor Or manual labor predominate ? In the case of Prather v. Pantone, 125 Ga. 808 [54 S. E. 663], the defendant was a builder of cabs and pilots for locomotives, but he boldly proclaimed himself ‘a skilled mechanic and an expert,’ and said that ‘ holding his job was as much dependent upon his mental ability as upon his ability to perform manual labor, the one being about as important as the other.’ While it is true that stenography tends to cultivate the memory, the memory is not an intellectual faculty. Fine memories usually attend upon great minds, but the converse is not necessarily .true. There have been marvelous-memories rmilluminated by intelligence. Blind Tom’s ears received in perfect integrity musical sounds which his fingers reproduced upon the piano, but he was practically an idiot, and no one ever confounded him with a true musician. The incidencies of mathematical prodigies without minds are numerous. For the purposes of the statute in question, the real test, after all, to be ascertained from the decisions,, is independence of thought, discretion, the exercise of choice, initiative,
“If we are to take the Prather case, supra, as a guide, skilfulness does not render the salary subject. One may be an expert— the highest expression of that particular line of occupation — and still be within the protection of the statute. The law encourages proficiency and skill; it does not fine a man for cultivating them. That a stenographer is skilled and trained can not affect the nature of the work he does, although it does affect its character. After acquiring the trade, the test is the method of carrying it on. It is difficult to conceive of anything more thoroughly manual than the work of a stenographer. Receiving the sounds from the lips, of another, he registers what he hears and reproduces what he receives. He exercises no .independence of thought, no initiative, no discretion. The test of his efficiency is his absolute acceptance of what is given him and its return unchanged. If his employer indulges in the pastime of murdering the king’s English, he must become a ‘particeps criminis’ and join in the assassination. So-pronouncedly are the physical faculties' involved in stenography that there comes a time when the hand refuses to work, although the mental faculties may be entirely clear. It is pre-eminently manual labor, work of the hand. I have heard it said that in the efficient corps which records the proceedings of Congress, individuals are not permitted to take down what is said beyond a limited number of minutes, the hand becoming unreliable, although the mind may be in definite working order. I am not without corroborating experience in this direction, having enjoyed the privilege of being in my youth the reporter of this circuit. If to the plaintiff’s duties were added that of transcribing on the typewriter, surely no one who has gone through with that back-breaking experience will hesitate to range 'it in the category of hard physical labor. .Whilst the tendency on the part of the Supreme Court has
“Between the conflicting view of the Supreme Court and the justice of the third militia district, with some illumination from my own cognizance, judicial and otherwise, I am constrained to follow the Anderson case and sustain the certiorari. Let an order, be taken to that effect.” Judgment affirmed,.