100 Wash. 642 | Wash. | 1918
Lead Opinion
At its biennial session of 1913, the legislature of the state of Washington passed an act relating to the employment of women and minors. Laws 1913, p. 602 (Rem. Code, § 6571-1 et seq.). Section 2 of the act makes it unlawful to employ women or minors in any industry or occupation under condi
“Sec. 17%. Any worker or the parent or guardian of any minor to whom this act applies may complain to the commission that the wages paid to the workers are less than the minimum rate and the commission shall investigate the same and proceed under this act in behalf of the worker.” Rem. Code, § 6571-17%.
‘ ‘ Sec. 18. If any employee shall receive less than the legal minimum wage, except as hereinbefore provided in section 13, said employee shall be entitled to recover in a civil action the full amount of the legal minimum wage as herein provided for, together with costs and; attorney’s fees to lie fixed by the court, notwithstand
“Se.c. 19. All questions of fact arising under this act shall be determined by the commission and there shall be no appeal from its decision upon said question of fact. Either employer or employee shall have the right of appeal to the superior court on questions of law.” Id., § 6571-19.
Acting under and in pursuance of the statute, the industrial welfare commission appointed in pursuance thereof, after due investigation in the manner provided in the act, entered an obligatory order under the date of December 21,1914, affecting office employment. The part of the order material here reads as follows:
“(1) No person,-firm, association or corporation shall employ any female over the age of eighteen years as a stenographer, bookkeeper, typist, billing clerk, filing clerk, cashier, checker, invoicer, comptometer operator, or in any clerical work of any kind in any establishment whatsoever, in which a minimum wage rate applicable to such employee has not heretofore been established as provided by law, at a weekly wage rate of less than ten dollars ($10), any lesser wage rate being hereby declared inadequate as to such employees to supply the necessary cost of living and maintain them in health.
“(2) Not less than one hour shall be allowed for noonday luncheon to any female employee specified in paragraph (1) hereof, such requirement being demanded for the health of such employee.
“This order shall become effective sixty (60) days from the date hereof.”
Subsequent to the time the order became effective, the appellant in this action employed the respondent as a ticket seller in a moving picture house conducted by him at Chehalis. The respondent served in that capacity, as found by the trial court, for a period of
In July, 1916', the respondent began the present action to recover the'difference between the wage rate paid and the sum she conceived herself entitled to under the statute and the obligatory order of the industrial welfare commission made in pursuance thereof. In her complaint she demanded judgment based on a flat rate of ten dollars per week for the number of weeks she was employed, but, at the trial, conceded through her counsel that she was entitled to recover only on the basis of ten dollars per week for a week of forty-eight hours. The trial court allowed a recovery on the latter basis, entering judgment in favor of the respondent for the sum of $278.87.
In his answer to the respondent’s complaint, the appellant interposed general denials, and set up three affirmative defenses. The first of these affirmative defenses suggests the question whether the respondent’s employment falls within, or is subject to, the obligatory order entered by the industrial welfare commission. In the second defense, a settlement of the controversy between the respondent and the appellant was set forth. The third raises the question of the constitutionality of the act. A demurrer was interposed to the several defenses, and- overruled as to the first two, but sustained as to the last. At the trial the court determined from the evidence that the respondent’s employment was within the obligatory order of the commission. It was held, however, that the facts set forth as constituting a settlement, although further amplified by a trial amendment, did not constitute a defense, and evidence offered to substantiate the plea was rejected.
The first question is the constitutionality of the act. On this question we do not feel disposed to enter into an extended discussion. The state of Oregon has a law upon its statute books almost the exact counterpart of our own, and its constitutionality was sustained by the unanimous decision of the highest court of that state sitting En Banc, against attacks based upon the several grounds urged by the appellants here. Stettler v. O’Hara, 69 Ore. 519, 139 Pac. 743; Simpson v. O’Hara, 70 Ore. 261, 141 Pac. 158. These cases were taken, by writ of error on the Federal question involved, to the United States supreme court, and were there affirmed after a reargument, although by an equally divided court, Mr. Justice Brandéis taking no part in the consideration and decision of the cases. Stettler v. O’Hara and Simpson v. O’Hara, 243 U. S. 629. The reasoning of the justice of the Oregon court writing the decisions in the cases appeals to us as sound and conclusive, and we are content to rest our judgment on the authority of the cases as there determined.
The second question, Is the work which the respondent was employed to perform within the obligatory order of the industrial welfare commission, was also, we think, correctly determined by the trial court. While the court found that the work was that of a cashier and thus fell within the enumerated employments set forth in the order, and while we think this conclusion may be questioned, we have no doubt that the work was clerical work and thus within the general clause of the order which follows the specially enumerated employments. This does not add to the list of employees a class not
The final question relates to the ruling of the court with reference to the defense of compromise. The offer of proof was reasonably within the allegations of the answer as amended at the trial. As it appears in the record, the offer was this:
“With the amended answer thus amended, defendant offers to prove by this witness, J. D. Rice, and by other witnesses that on or about the 22d day of June, 1916, and after all the services ever rendered by plaintiff for defendant at his moving picture show, included in the complaint, had been fully performed, and after plaintiff had been paid by defendant the amount she claimed for said services, and at a time when plaintiff was twenty-one years of age and in all respects competent to bind herself by contract and agreement, plaintiff made a further claim against defendant for her said services, claiming additional compensation in the sum of $274 and no more, and that, at said time, there was a dispute between plaintiff and defendant, the plaintiff claiming that she had performed services for five and one-half hours per day for a period of fifty-six weeks and defendant believing and claiming that plaintiff had only performed services for him for a period
It is undoubtedly a general rule that private controversies between individuals sui juris may be compromised by them by mutual agreement, and that the courts will not, where no question of fraud intervenes, relieve from the agreement, even though it be shown that the one gained rights thereby to which he would not otherwise have been entitled and that the other gave up rights to which he was fully entitled; this, on the principle that compromises are favored by the law, since they tend to prevent strife and conduce to peace and to the general welfare of the community. But the controversy here had an added element not found in the ordinary controversy between individuals. It was not wholly of private concern. It was affected with a public interest. The state, having declared that a minimum wage of a certain amount is necessary to a decent maintenance of an employee engaged in the employment in which the respondent was engaged, has an interest in seeing that the fixed compensation is actually paid. The statute making the declaration not only makes contracts of employment for less than the min
These conclusions require an affirmance of the judgment, and it is so ordered.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting)—I think the compromise was permissible and that appellant should have been allowed to prove it as offered by him.