108 Mich. 527 | Mich. | 1896
The defendant was convicted of a violation of the statute requiring emery wheels to be provided with blowers to carry away the dust arising from their operation. Act No. 111, Pub. Acts 1893, and 3 How. Stat. § 1690z3. Counsel for the defendant assert that they care to raise but one question, viz., the constitutionality of this law.
The vital question in this case is the right of the State to require the employer to provide, and the employé to "use, appliances intended for the protection of the latter. Laws of this class embrace provisions for the safety and welfare of those whom necessity may compel to submit to existing conditions involving hazards which they would otherwise be unwilling to assume. Among them
The Constitution secures to the citizen the rights of life, liberty, and private property, and, as the only value in the latter consists in its use, it follows that the right to use private property is within the provision. There can, however, be no doubt that the use of private property may be regulated by law. No one would think of questioning the validity of laws regulating the manufacture, use, and sale of dangerous drugs or explosives, or laws designed to insure safety in railway travel. The inspection of boilers, fire escapes upon hotels, means of exit from churches and other buildings which the public are wont to frequent, are familiar instances of the exercise of the police power. These rules are defended upon the ground that they are necessary to the safety of the public; not the entire populace, but such persons as shall lawfully place themselves in a position requiring such protection. Where the law is aimed at acts or conditions which threaten contagion, — as where sewers, disinfection, or quarantine is required, — the necessity of and the power to make such laws are obvious. But at first blush they may not be so apparent where there is no direct danger to others than the party whose business is sought to be regulated, and those with whom he contracts. It is contended in this case that neither the public welfare nor health is involved, inasmuch as the protection sought to be afforded is limited to the individual employé, who, by his contract of employment, signifies a willingness to use the machine in its dangerous condition, and therefore cannot be heard to complain.
It is the law that a manufacturer may provide inferior, and even dangerous, machinery, tools, and utensils; and
The case of People v. Warden of City Prison, 144 N. Y. 529, is an interesting one upon this question, and although the decision there laid down is criticised (perhaps justly) by Mr. Justice Peckham in a dissenting opinion, concurred in by two- of his associates, the power
“Hand rails to stairs, hoisting shafts to be-inclosed, automatic doors to elevators, automatic shifters for throwing off belts or pulleys, and fire escapes on the outside of certain factories, — all these were required by the legislature from such owner, and without any direct compensation to him for such expenditure. Has the legislature no right to enact laws such as this statute regarding factories, unless limited to factories to be thereafter built? Because the factory was already built when the act was passed, was it beyond the legislative power to provide such safeguards to life and health, as against all owners of such property, unless upon the condition that these expenditures to be incurred should ultimately come out of the public purse? I think to so hold would be to run counter to the general course of decisions regarding the validity of laws of this character, and to mistake the foundation upon which they are placed. ”
The trouble with these cases arises over the inability of the courts to fix a rigid rule by which the validity of such laws may be tested. Each law of the kind involves the questions: (1) Is there a threatened danger? (2) Does the regulation invade a constitutional right? (3) Is the regulation reasonable ? In the present case no controversy is raised over the first of these. Hence we are not called upon to discuss it. As is implied by what has been said, the constitutional right to use property without regulation, is plain, unless the public welfare requires its regulation. If the public welfare does require it, the right must yield to the public exigency. And it is upon this question of necessity that the third question depends. All, then, seems to be embraced in the question of necessity. Unless the emery wheel is dangerous to health, there is no necessity, and consequently no power, to regulate it.
The other Justices concurred.
Our attention is called to the fact that under the opinion heretofore filed the act as originally passed might be held unconstitutional, inasmuch as it does not discriminate between dry and wet wheels, which last, it is said, cannot possibly produce dust, and therefore do not require the blower. This question was necessarily passed upon in the former opinion, as the amendment could not be sustained if the original act was invalid. In addition to what was said in the former opinion, we may say that two sufficient reasons may be given for not holding the first act void: First. We are not able to say that a wheel may not be run with or without water at pleasure, in which case it would seem proper that the blower should be required as an efficient means of preventing its being run without water. Second. If this were not so, the act might be construed as applicable only to wheels capable of producing dust, as the language of the act clearly shows that it was intended to reach such, and an act should always be so construed as to bring it within the Constitution, if it can be reasonably done. Coit & Co. v. Sutton, 102 Mich. 324.