136 Ga. 638 | Ga. | 1911
These two cases were argued together. Three questions are raised: (1) Does the fourth section of the act of 1909, embodied in Civil Code, (1910), § 2785, apply to the character of relief arrangement or agreement and the state of facts described in the first question of the Court of Appeals? (2) If so, is that section unconstitutional as violating the clause of the constitution of this State which declares that no law impairing the obligation of a contract shall be passed (Civil Code (1910), § 6389) ? (3) If such statute is applicable, is it violative of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, on the ground that it abridges the privilege of the railroad company to contract? We will take up these questions in the order stated.
It was contended that section 2785, when considered together with the other sections mentioned, did not cover a case like the one stated in the question propounded to us. We can not acquiesce in this contention. The main purpose of the act was to enlarge the liability of common carriers by railroad for damages to employees, and to declare that certain things which previously would have prevented a reco.very should not thereafter do so. One of these was the character of arrangement here involved.
A glance at the legislation in this State on the subject of recoveries for-injuries to the persons of railroad employees will throw light on the legislative intent.' Under the act of 1856, as codified in section 2980 of the Code of 1863, it-was declared: “If the per
By the act of 1895 (Acts 1895, p. 97; Civil Code of 1895, § 2613), it was declared: “All contracts between master and servant, made in consideration of employment, whereby the.master is exempted from liability to the servant arising from the negligence of the master or his servants, as such liability is now fixed by law, shall be'null and void, as against public policy.-” Here, then, prior to the act of 1909, was a prohibition against contracts whereby the master was exempted from liability to the servant arising from the negligence of the master or his other servants. But a new arrangement was made, which was called a relief department. The employees of the railroad company who became members had certain amounts deducted from their wages to go to the relief fund. The company-had general charge of the department, paid amounts for the maintenance of the relief department, and guaranteed the payment of the benefits provided to be paid. There was no direct agreement to release the company from liability for negligence; but if an injured employee took the benefits arising in part from his own contributions and those of his coemploytees, he forfeited any right to hold the company liable. If he sued the company, he forfeited any claim for benefits or relief. It is unnecessary to discuss the merits or demerits of this system. Suffice it to say that, under its operation, the employee was put upon his election. Whichever way he elected, he released or forfeited something. •
In this state of the law, it was held that such an agreement was not illegal. Petty v. Brunswick & Western Ry. Co., 109 Ga. 666 (35 S. E. 82). There was no intimation that the legislature could not change the law. They did change it, and passed the act of 1909, which is quoted above. If that act was not intended to apply to the situation here involved, it is difficult to say what was
To the first question propounded by the Court of Appeals we answer that the act of Í909 -applies to the present cases; so that acceptance of benefits did not operate to release the defendant company, but entitled it to diminish any recovery which might be had, as in the act provided.
Ttíe injured employee became a member of the relief department of the railway company in 1906. The act of the legislature under discussion was approved August 16, 1909. The employee was injured in December, 1909. Thereafter he accepted a certain portion of the benefits due him from the relief department. The railway company had contributed a part of the money from which such benefit payments were made.
In Boston and Maine R. Co. v. County Commissioners, 79 Me.
In Coates v. Mayor etc. of New York, 7 Cow. 585, interments’ of the-dead were made in a certain part of the city of New York by persons having a right under grants of, or titles to, land held in trust for the sole purpose of interment, some of which land had been used for that purpose for more than a century, and to some of which certain fees for interment were incident and belonged to the person interring. A further right was also claimed by individual vault owners, in whose behalf some of the interments were made. It/was held that an act which authorized the city to make by-laws for regulating or,-if found necessary, preventing the interment of .the dead was not unconstitutional, either- as impairing the obligation of contracts, or taking private property for public use without compensation. In Lindenmuller v. People, 33 Barb. 548, 577, an act of the legislature of New York prohibiting exhibitions of dramatic performances on Sunday was held to be constitutional, as against a claim that the plaintiff -in error had leased •certain property with a view to its occupancy for the purpose of a •Sunday theater. It was added that “The contract with the performers, if. one exists, for their service on the Sabbath, stands upon
In People v. Hawley, 3 Mich. 330, a manufacturer of malt liquors in Michigan entered into a written contract with a firm at Chicago, Illinois, whereby he agreed to sell and forward to the firm all quantities of malt liquors which they might need in their business for five years thereafter. Nineteen days later an act was passed by the legislature of Michigan, prohibiting the manufacture of intoxicating beverages, and the traffic in them. Upon being indicted, the manufacturer set up that the law impaired the obligation of his contract. The Supreme Court of the State held the law valid, and declared, that, in the exercise of its police powers, the State may prohibit the exercise of any trade or employment which is found to be hazardous or injurious to its citizens, and that “Where the exercise of such power operates to prevent the performance of a contract previously made, the same principle applies, and the law is not within the prohibition of the constitution of the United States.”
While the clause of the constitution of the United States inhibiting any State from passing a law impairing the obligation of a contract is not invoked in this case, it is substantially the same as that contained in our State constitution, and the construction given to the former will throw light on the proper construction of the latter. In New York etc. Railroad Company v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 556 (14 Sup. Ct. 437, 38 L. ed. 269), a law requiring the removal of grade crossings on a railroad was attacked as unconstitutional. It was contended, among other things, that the company could not meet the expense entailed upon it thereunder and have any income left to pay its fixed charges, interest, and dividends on preferred stock, and that it impaired the obligation of the contracts made by the company with the holders of its bonds and preferred stock, by making it impossible for the company to pay the interest on the bonds and dividends on such stock, as it had agreed to do, and also maintain and operate the railroad efficiently. The law was held to be constitutional. In the opinion of the court, delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, it was said (p. 567); “It is likewise
In some of the cases cited, the contract set up arose from the charter of the corporation. In the Dartmouth College case, in the absence of a reservation of a right to alter or withdraw franchises, a charter was held to constitute a contract with the State. In that case, however, it was not' held, that the police power of the State was destroyed; and in cases cited above the rule that such power may be legitimately exercised, although to some extent it may interfere with the manner of enjoying or using the grants contained in the charter, is asserted.
In New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., supra, a legislative grant of an exclusive right to supply gas to a municipality and its inhabitants, through pipes and mains laid in the public streets, and upon condition of the performance of service by the grantee, after performance by the grantee, was held to be a contract within the protection of the constitution of the United States against State legislation impairing the obligation of contracts. Nevertheless, in the opinion, Mr. Justice Harlan said (p. 672): “The constitutional prohibition upon State laws impairing the obligation of contracts does not restrict the power of the State to
In Manigault v. Springs, 199 U. S. 473 (26 Sup. Ct. 127, 50 L. ed. 274), riparian owners of land entered into an agreement to remove a dam obstructing a creek and to allow the creek to remain open and unobstructed. Later the legislature of South Carolina passed an act, reciting the necessity for draining the low lands'of the Santee river, and authorizing the defendants by name to erect and maintain a dam across the creek. It was held by the Supreme Court of the United States that such an act, for the draining and reclamation of swamps and the erection of dams, levees, and dikes for that purpose, was a legitimate exercise of the police power, and was not unconstitutional as impairing the obligation of the previous contract between the parties.
In this State, since the Code of 1863, a law has existed which reserves the right to withdraw ■ corporate franchises, and later a constitutional prohibition against the grant of irrevocable franchises has been added. Code of 1863, § 1636; Code (1910) §§ 6389, 6390. So that the question of irrevocable grants by the State after 1863 does not arise. But authorities on that subject are useful in dealing with the principle involved where such contracts could be made.
It will be seen that the clause of the constitution of the United States inhibiting the States from passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts is not violated by the legitimate exercise of legislative power in securing the public safety, health and morals, and that the governmental power of protection of the people can not be contracted away. This is true of contracts between a State and a corporation or individual, and also of a municipality as to its legislative or discretionary governmental power. Macon Consolidated Street R. Co. v. Mayor and Council, 112 Ga. 782 (38 S. E. 60). “Neither can private individuals and corporations, by 'entering into contracts among themselves, invoke the contract ‘clause of the Federal constitution for the protection of those con
The expression “police power” is sometimes used in a very broad sense, including all legislation and almost every function of civil government. At other times it is used in a somewhat more restricted sense. The legislature can not arbitrarily prohibit either the making or the carrying out of all contracts, under the claim of exercising police power. Thus it is clear that the legislature could not declare that debtors could satisfy promissory notes by paying less than the amount called for by them, or that such notes should bear a greater or less rate of interest than that included in them, if valid when the contract was made. Other illustrations of contracts beyond the reach of interference by the legislature might be given. At the other extreme stand such contracts as those involved in the liquor and lottery eases above cited. Between these-two extremes lies a legal territory where cases must be determined as they arise. No inflexible line can be drawn in advance 'as a test for the determination of what is a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State which does not conflict with the contract clause of the constitution, and what is an arbitrary interference with the obligation of contracts or with the liberty of contract.
In Iowa a statute was passed which made railway companies liable to employees for damages in consequence of the negligence of their agents or other employees, and declared that no, contract which restricted such liability should be legal or binding. By amendment it was added that no contract of insurance relief, benefit, or indemnity in ease of injury or death, entered into prior to the injury, and no acceptance of any such relief, insurance, benefit, or indemnity by the person injured, his widow, heirs, or legal representatives after the injury,, should constitute any bar or defense to any cause of action brought under the provisions of the act. This act was attacked on the ground that it violated the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, in that it impaired the liberty of contract. In Chicago etc. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549 (31 Sup. Ct. 259, 55 L. ed.), the constitutionality of the act was upheld. In the syllabus it was said: “A State has power to prohibit contracts limiting liability -for injuries,
Statutes changing, as to railroad companies, the general rule which exempts the master from liability -to a servant for injuries caused by the fault or negligence of a fellow servant have been upheld by various courts. The peculiar nature of the business conducted, the conferring on railroad companies of the power of eminent domain, the dangers incident to such employment, the number of people engaged in it, and the necessity for the State to protect them, have all been advanced as reasons for making a classification as to such employees, and enacting laws looking to their safety. Georgia Railroad and Banking Co. v. Miller, 90 Ga. 571 (16 S. E. 939), and citations; Florida East Coast R. Co. v. Lassiter, 58 Fla. 234 (50 So. 428); 19 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 192, and note. It is not easy to see how a statute like the one under consideration can be held,to be a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State, looking to the public safety and welfare, or the safety of a class of the public which may be dealt with as such, and therefore valid as against a claim that it interferes with the constitutional right to contract, and yet be' declared void because it affects the future operation of the contract by preventing “the like substitution of its performance,” in the language of Mr. Justice Hughes. If it is a legitimate exercise of the police power for public safety in the one case, it should be so held in the other.
The theory on which agreements of the general character of that here involved have been sustained, in the absence of legislation like that contained in the act of 1909, is that the contract does not itself purport to relieve the railroad company from the legal consequences of its negligence, or that of its servants; and that the release of the company arises only upon the acceptance of benefits, which is optional with the employee after he has been injured. For this reason it has been held that such contracts did not violate statutes prohibiting contracts exempting a master from liability to a servant arising from the negligence of the master or his other servants. Thus, in Petty v. Brunswick Railway Company, 109 Ga. (supra), in the opinion of the court (p. 671), referring to the argument that the benefit agreement violated a statute of the character mentioned, it was'said: “As should be readily apparent, the weakness' of this position lies in the fact that it is based upon an entire'
The plaintiffs right of action against the railroad company for the injury to his person arose after the passage of the act of 1909, and the liability of the railroad company is to be determined by that act. It gave him a right to recover for an injury arising from the negligence of a coemployee, although he might himself have been guilty of some negligence, and declared that he should not be debarred by the doctrine of assumption of risks of employment, as therein stated. This was different from what would have been the status had he been injured before its passage. It also contained the clause u^der discussion. Before any contract of release by ac