State v. . Whitaker

45 S.E.2d 860, 228 N.C. 352, 1947 N.C. LEXIS 350, 21 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2156
CourtSupreme Court of North Carolina
DecidedDecember 19, 1947
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 45 S.E.2d 860 (State v. . Whitaker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. . Whitaker, 45 S.E.2d 860, 228 N.C. 352, 1947 N.C. LEXIS 350, 21 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2156 (N.C. 1947).

Opinion

Seawell, J.

The question whether violation of Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the challenged statute constitutes a criminal offense was raised in S. v. Bishop, post, 371, and affirmatively answered. To this we refer.

*359 In so far as tbe same question is raised in this ease, it may be, on the same reasoning similarly answered.

We note that appellants’ brief abandons assignments of error No. 1, (E. pp. 4 & 30) and No. 2 (E. pp. 14 & 30) relating to the sufficiency of the warrant to state the charge and the sufficiency of the evidence to convict, if the statute is declaratory of a criminal offense, except' that they insist on the motion to quash the warrant and arrest the judgment for that cause. We have referred to the contention supra. The defense stresses the contention that Chapter 328 is in contravention of both the State and Federal Constitutions, and, therefore, void.

While the basic laws under which the validity of the challenged legislation must be determined are elementary, they are, nevertheless, so fundamental as to bear summarization at this point. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved for the States respectively or to the people.” Within this reservation of powers to the individual states, is what has been judicially termed “the police power.” 1 Chapter 328 of the General Session Laws of 1947 was enacted in attempted exercise of that power. The. authority of the Legislature to pass this statute, or any other measure it may deem necessary in the public welfare, is unlimited except where prohibited by the Federal or State Constitution or in conflict with Federal law enacted pursuant to constitutionally granted authority. The enactment in question has been challenged as prohibited by the Fourteenth .Amendment to the Federal Constitution and Article I, Section 17, of the State Constitution.

Neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor Article I, Section 17, contains any unqualified prohibition. Both operate to prevent the Legislature from depriving anyone of individual' or property rights except by due process of law. Due process is, of necessity, an elastic term which through the years has been expanded to cope with the varying problems of our increasingly complex society.

The flexible restraints which the Fourteenth Amendment has placed upon the use of its police power by a state are carefully set forth by Mr. Justice Roberts in Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S., 502, at pages 523 and 525:

“Under our form of government the use of property and the making of contracts are normally matters of private and not of public concern. The general rule is that both shall be free of gov *360 ernmental interference. But neither property rights or contract rights are absolute; for government cannot exist if the citizen may at will use his property to the detriment of his fellows, or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental with the private right is that of the public to regulate it in the common interest.
“The Fifth Amendment, in the field of Federal activity, and the Fourteenth as respects state action, do not prohibit governmental regulation for the public welfare. They merely condition the exertion of the admitted power, by securing that the end shall be accomplished by methods consistent with due process. And the guarantee of due process, as has often been held, demands only that the law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained.”

The elasticity of these restrictions upon the use of the police power is the life-giving elasticity of the Constitution itself so vital to our economic, social and political growth. Perhaps more than that of any other social force, the progress of labor toward its rightful place in our society would have been retarded if all statutes enacted in the exercise of the police power had been measured on the Procrustean bed of judicial precedent. 2 The dictates of the Fourteenth Amendment, that “the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be obtained,” must be viewed in the light of contemporary conditions under which the Legislature has seen fit to enact the statute in question. However, it is obvious that a clear understanding of those conditions is impossible without some resort to the historical development of the governmentally imposed rules for the struggle between the employer and the employed. 3

*361 Until recently, the struggle between management and labor has been demonstrably one-sided with Anglo-American law favoring the side possessing “the heaviest artillery.” Since the first attempts within this country to define the legal weapons and areas of combat were based upon English precedent, a brief look in that direction may be helpful.

In England, any combination of laborers to raise wages or shorten hours was a crime until 1824. 4 Until 1871, it was also a crime to threaten a strike or even to persuade an employee to leave his work; 5 in 1875, Parliament enacted legislation providing that workmen would not be subject to indictment for criminal conspiracy in effecting collectively that which was lawful for one workman to do; 6 while the closed shop was recognized as legal in 1898 by the House of Lords, acting as England’s highest court, 7 that body was unwilling to declare the boycott a legal weapon of labor although it had previously held it to be a permissible economic weapon when used by a combination of shipping firms; 8 the boycott and peaceful picketing were legalized in 1906 by the Trade Disputes Act; 9 following the general strikes of 1926, Great Britain pro-\ hibited local and public authorities to enter closed shop agreements; 10 that restriction was lifted in 1946. 11

Meanwhile, in this country early-labor cases followed the English courts’ interpretation of the common law. The Philadelphia Cord- *362 wainers case is generally regarded as the first labor case in America; in 1806 a combination of journeymen shoemakers to effect a higher pay schedule was held illegal under the common law doctrine of criminal conspiracy. 12 This typified the early treatment of such matters.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Sullivan
687 S.E.2d 504 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 2009)
McBee v. State
673 S.E.2d 569 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2009)
McNeill v. Harnett County
398 S.E.2d 475 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1990)
Town of Atlantic Beach v. Young
298 S.E.2d 686 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1983)
In Re: Joseph Lee Moore
221 S.E.2d 307 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1976)
Beasley v. Food Fair of N. C., Inc.
193 S.E.2d 911 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1973)
City of Raleigh v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co.
168 S.E.2d 389 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1969)
State v. Anderson
166 S.E.2d 49 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1969)
Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion
Texas Attorney General Reports, 1961
Willard v. Huffman
109 S.E.2d 233 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1959)
Hudson v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY
89 S.E.2d 441 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1955)
In Re the Receivership of Port Publishing Co.
57 S.E.2d 366 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1950)
Finney v. Hawkins
54 S.E.2d 872 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1949)
Dayton Co. v. Carpet, Linoleum & Resilient Floor Decorators' Union
39 N.W.2d 183 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1949)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
45 S.E.2d 860, 228 N.C. 352, 1947 N.C. LEXIS 350, 21 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2156, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-whitaker-nc-1947.