216 P. 39 | Cal. | 1923
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *269
This is an appeal from a judgment in the defendant's favor in an action instituted in the name of the people of the state of California by the state controller and the Industrial Accident Commission, to recover from the defendant the sum of $350 upon an alleged liability created under the provisions of chapter 183 of the Statutes of 1919. (Stats. 1919, p. 273.) The identical facts which form the basis of this action were presented before this court in the case of Yosemite LumberCo. et al. v. Industrial Acc. Com. et al.,
To the complaint seeking this recovery the defendant corporation presented a demurrer upon the ground that the court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of said action, and also upon the general ground that the said complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The defendant also presented an answer in several counts, in all of which the averments of fact in said complaint were admitted, but in which all liability on the part of the defendant arising out of said facts was expressly denied. The defendant also in certain of said counts in its said answer set forth with more of detail the facts as to the employment, injury, and death of said employee and as to his having left no surviving dependents entitled to compensation or to the benefits under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation, Insurance and Safety Act (Stats. 1917, p. 831). Several grounds of alleged unconstitutionality of said act were specified in the defendant's said answer. The trial court sustained the defendant's demurrer and granted its motion for judgment on the pleadings; and upon the plaintiff's refusal to amend, judgment was entered in the defendant's favor. It is from such judgment that this appeal has been taken.
One of the first but not most strenuously urged contentions of the plaintiff upon this appeal is that the decision of this court in the matter of Yosemite Lumber Co. et al. v.Industrial Acc. Com. et al., supra, holding sections 5 and 6 of the act of 1,919 to be unconstitutional and void, was founded in error and should be overruled. It may be suggested, incidentally, that one of the results of sustaining this contention would be to render good the defendant's ground of demurrer to the effect that the superior court *272 had no jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action, since by the provisions of the constitution and statutes dealing with compensable injuries to workmen, the courts, except through the limited processes of writs of review, have been deprived of jurisdiction of such matters, while the particular statute under review herein in those sections thereof, which the appellant now insist we have erroneously held to be void, invests, not the courts, but the Industrial Accident Commission, with full jurisdiction over the very matter of which the plaintiff and appellant in this action is seeking to have the superior court and this court assume jurisdiction. [1] But, however this may be, this court remains satisfied with the reasoning and conclusions of its decision in said former proceeding as to the invalidity of said sections 5 and 6 of said act of 1919 and hereby expressly approves and reaffirms the same.
The next and main contention of the appellant herein is that notwithstanding the former decision of this court holding sections 5 and 6 of said act of 1919 to be unconstitutional and void, the main body of said act was not affected by said ruling but remained in full force and effect, and, so remaining, was susceptible of enforcement through the medium of the courts and in this form of action. This contention on the part of the appellant is founded in the assertion and argument that the state of California has power independently of its express constitutional and statutory provisions relating to compensable injuries or fatalities to workmen, but under its general police powers, to provide for the rehabilitation and re-education of persons disabled in industry, by creating a fund for such purposes; and that, possessing such power, it has also the power to impose the burden of providing and maintaining such fund upon employers as a class. In making this contention the appellant, among other authorities, relies upon the following language used by this court in the case of Yosemite LumberCo. et al. v. Industrial Acc. Com. et al., supra, wherein this court says. "It may be conceded that under its general powers the legislature might provide a fund for the benefit of persons disabled in industry in this state and commit the administration of the fund to the Industrial Accident Commission, and might also levy a tax in some form to raise such fund." *273
The respondent herein, however, strenuously contends that this concession may not properly or safely be made and the argument which it puts forth to sustain its contention in this regard is this; that the general or police powers of a state are only those powers which can be exercised under and in harmony with its constitution, and that when the state constitution has spoken with respect to how far its legislature may go in the enactment of laws upon a particular subject the legislature may not go beyond the limits thus prescribed by the constitution under the guise of exercising general or police powers in relation to that subject. The state constitution has spoken upon the subject of workmen's compensation and upon the extent of the liability and burden to be laid upon employers as a class for the payment of awards for injuries received by their workmen while in their employ, and that the limitations upon legislative power in that regard are to be found in section 21 of article XX of the constitution, which declares the policy and defines the powers of the state acting through its legislature upon that subject, and in so doing has delegated to the legislature the power, and the power only, "to create and enforce a liability on the part of any and all persons to compensate any and all of their workmen for injury or disability and for their death incurred or sustained by the said workmen in the course of their employment." It is the respondent's contention that the language of the constitution above quoted, upon the principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius, places a limitation upon the power of the legislature to impose any further liability upon employers for injuries to their employees arising in the course of industry than that expressed in said section of the constitution, and hence that the legislature had no power to go beyond that limitation with respect to employers' liability under the guise of the exercise of general or police power. The respondent cites in support of this contention the language of this court used in said former proceeding wherein this court in construing the above-quoted provision of the constitution said:
"The next phrase of the new act empowers the legislature in that behalf to create and enforce a liability on the part of any and all persons to compensate any and all of theirworkmen for injury or disability, and their dependents for *274 death incurred or sustained by said workmen in the course of their employment.' This does not authorize the creation of a liability on the part of any person to compensate the workmen of other persons, nor the dependents of workmen of other persons. The phrase 'their workmen' necessarily confines the persons to be compensated to workmen who are in the employ of the person who is made liable. This is also shown by the provision that if the workman is killed by an injury in the course of his employment, the compensation is to be made to his 'dependents,' thus excluding any idea of liability in such a case to provide for the welfare of workmen in general, or of a particular class of disabled workmen, in no way connected with the employer who was made liable for the particular injury. . . . The use in this clause of the words 'any and all persons,' in describing those made liable, and the words 'any and all of their workmen,' in describing those to be compensated, do not show an intent to empower the legislature to enlarge the liability against a particular employer for a particular injury so as to include compensation to workmen in general as a class, or a contribution to a fund to be applied to the benefit of a class of persons, instead of to the dependents of the workmen who may be killed in the injury. Nor is such enlarged meaning given to the section by the use of the phrase 'complete system of workmen's compensation,' in the opening clause or by the elaborate definition of that phrase which follows the first sentence. The section mentions and describes but one kind of liability: the liability of 'any and all persons' to compensate 'any or all of their workmen.' . . . The language of neither one of these parts of the section shows or expresses an intent to add another liability to that expressly stated. In these circumstances the maxim 'expressio unius, estexclusio alterius' is applicable, and the meaning to be inferred is that only which is explicitly stated. And particularly it should not be inferred or implied from such language that so novel and different a thing was intended as the liability to the state which is imposed by the Act of 1919."
The argument which the respondent predicates upon the foregoing language of this court in said former proceedings is plausible and has much persuasive force and if given full effect would not only render the act of 1919 wholly *275 void, but would set a constitutional limitation upon the power of the legislature to enact any law providing a fund for the benefit of persons disabled in industry which would place the burden of its maintenance upon employers, except in so far as that liability related to their own individual employees. We do not deem it incumbent upon us by the exigencies of this case to go thus far, since we think the statute of 1919 must be held void for infirmities which will hereinafter be made to appear. Passing, therefore, this question and coming to the consideration of those provisions of the act of 1919 upon which, regardless of our former ruling, the appellant relies for its right to maintain this action, we are first led to consider the nature of the burden which said act imposes upon those who are by its terms required to pay into the state treasury the sum of money demanded of this defendant.
By the terms of section 1 of said act, employers are required to pay into the treasury of the state of California the sum of $350 for each fatal compensable injury suffered by any of their employees who do not leave surviving dependents entitled to death benefits under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act. Said moneys, when so paid into the state treasury, are to be placed in a special fund to be known as "the industrial rehabilitation fund" and are to be used for the purposes set forth in section 2 of said act, which provides that said fund may be drawn upon by the Industrial Accident Commission for the promotion of vocational re-education and rehabilitation of persons disabled in industry in this state. It will thus be seen that the source of the fund to be thus accumulated in the state treasury is that of a compulsory payment of a definite sum by a certain class of persons known as employers; and that the destination of said fund is that of benefits conferred upon a certain other class of persons in this state who have been disabled in industry. That the liability thus imposed by the state upon employers is a charge upon persons or property cannot be controverted; and that the purpose to which the public fund, when thus accumulated, is to be devoted is a public purpose would seem equally impossible of denial. [2] The imposition is therefore a tax, and the statute which imposes it and provides for its collection and distribution is a tax measure within the accepted definition *276 of that term. It was, in fact, so expressly held to be by this court in the former proceeding wherein the following language was used:
"In so far as the act purports to exact from employers a sum to be used by the state for disabled workmen in general, it is in reality a taxing law, a revenue measure. It requires any employer to pay to the state the sum of $350, whenever one of his workmen who has no dependents is killed by an injury received in the course of his employment, and the fund thus raised is to be used for vocational re-education of workmen not connected in any way with such employer, and the surplus, if any, to go to pay the expenses of the state carrying on the department or bureau administered by the Industrial Accident Commission, all of which are public purposes. This is purely a tax. 'A tax is a charge upon persons or property to raise money for public purposes.' (Perry v. Washburn,
The act of 1919 having been thus determined to be a tax measure it must, in order to be valid, be found to conform to the essential purposes governing taxation. Chief among these essential purposes is that of uniformity. [3] A tax measure imposing a tax for revenue must, in order to be valid, lay its burdens uniformly upon all those who come within a proper classification of the persons to be subjected to the burden of the particular tax. (1 Cooley on Taxation, 3d ed., p. 4;Kansas City v. Whipple,
The respondent herein urges yet other constitutional grounds against the validity of the act of 1919, treated as a tax measure, which we do not deem it necessary to consider. There is, however, a final reason which impels us to the conclusion that this act, considered as a whole, has been *279 rendered invalid by the decision of this court in the former proceeding which eliminated from its provisions sections 5 and 6 thereof. The act, regarded as a whole, was obviously intended by the lawmakers to be supplementary to the general Workmen's Compensation Act of this state. It refers in its title to said act. It adopts the definitions of said act as to compensable injuries, as to those entitled to death benefits and as to the basis of calculation of the total awards in such cases. It places the administration of the fund to be derived from its enforcement in the hands of the Industrial Accident Commission and it vests in said commission complete judicial power over the matter of the making and collection of the award from which it provides and with full jurisdiction and authority to hear and determine all questions and controversies arising under the act, in accordance with the procedure provided for the exercise of such jurisdiction by that body in the Workmen's Compensation Act. Beyond this it is barren of any suggestion that the courts should have any jurisdiction whatever over the enforcement of its provision. [7] This being so, we are impelled to the conclusion that the act was intended by its framers to stand or fall as a whole, and hence that the elimination of sections 5 and 6 therefrom by our former decision so far interfered with the purposes and operation of the act as to render it void as a whole.
Judgment affirmed.
Wilbur, C. J., Lennon, J., Lawlor, J., Seawell, J., Waste, J., and Myers, J., concurred. *280