State ex rel. Davis-Smith Co. v. Clausen

Citations

• 65 Wash. 156
• 117 P. 1101
• 1911 Wash. LEXIS 907

Syllabus

<p>Mandamus — State Warrants — Actions — Pasties Entitled— Questions — Constitutionality of Act. In mandamus to tbe state auditor to compel the auditing of a state warrant, the auditor may raise the question of the constitutionality of the act authorizing the warrant and requiring its payment; his duty to conserve public funds constituting a sufficient interest.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Liberty to Contract — Regulation of Occupations— Public Policy — Workingmen’s Compensation. The workingmen’s compensation act, Laws 1911, p. 345, which requires employers in extra hazardous employments to contribute fixed sums based upon their pay rolls to create a fund to reimbuse all employees injured in such employments, without regard to negligence or common law liability therefor, and provides that no employer shall exempt himself from the burden or waive the benefits of the act by any contract or regulation, and that any such contract or regulation shall be void pro tanto, is not unconstitutional as interfering with the right of contract; since “liberty” to contract is not absolute, and means absence from arbitrary restraint, not immunity from reasonable regulation and prohibition enforced in the interests of the community by public policy.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Due Process of Law — Regulation of Occupations- — Workingmen's Compensation Act — Police Power. Art. 1, § 3, of the state constitution and the 14th amendment to the Federal constitution, which provide that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law, are not violated by the workingmen’s compensation act, Laws 1911, p. 345, in that it creates a liability without fault on the part of employers in extra hazardous employments to contribute fixed sums based upon their pay rolls to create a fund to reimburse all employees injured in such employments without regard to negligence or common law liability therefor, and also takes the property of one employer to pay the obligations of another; since