Fairfield v. Wyoming V. Coal Co.

Citations

• 142 Pa. 397
• 21 A. 874
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 747

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>(a) The employees of a coal company, mining coal for it with the assistance of laborers employed by themselves, “turned in” to the company, monthly, statements of the time made and wages earned by their laborers, and on its regular pay-days the company paid such wages directly to the laborers, out of moneys in its hands due the miners who employed them:</p> <p>1. Such being the established usage and method of conducting the business, the “ turning in” of the laborer’s time by the miner was in legal effect an order on the company to pay to the laborer the amount due him from the miner: Plymouth Coal Co. v. Kommiskey, 116 Pa. 365; and the acceptance thereof was an undertaking to pay at the regular payday.</p> <p>2. As the rights of the laborer, under such an order, are not superior to those of his employer, the miner, he cannot maintain an action for its amount against the coal company prior to the pay-day on which the moneys of the miner, out of which it is to be paid, become due, even though he may have quit the service of the miner nearly twenty days before such pay-day.</p>