State v. J. J. Newman Lumber Co.

Citations

• 103 Miss. 263
• 60 So. 215

Syllabus

<p>1. Statutes. Construction. Legislative intent. Meaning of words-Master and servant. Regulation of hours of engagement. Manufacturing. Constitutional law. Liberty of contract. Police power. Laws 1912, chapter 157.</p> <p>General rules for the construction of statutes should not be used to. defeat the purpose of the lawmakers by attributing to them a design to ignore and override the eonstitutiqnal limitations upon their power to legislate.</p> <p>2. Construction op Statutes. TJse of words. Legislature.</p> <p>On construing the statute the courts must assume that the legislators employed the words of the statute in their usual and most . common sense.</p> <p>3. Laws 1912, Chapter 157. “Manufacturing”. Definition.</p> <p>In construing Laws 1912, chapter 157, prohibiting any person or firm or corporation engaged in manufacturing from working employees more than ten hours a day, etc., the word “manufacturing” should be construed to mean “an organized force of laborers, working with machinery to produce from the raw materials the finished product.”</p> <p>4. Constitutional Law. Liberty of contract. Police power.</p> <p>The liberty of contract is subject to regulation within the police power, and it differs from fundamental constitutional rights from the liberty of the body or person, from the right of property and from the right of equality and political liberty, in that it is neither a vested right, nor a right of definite extent, nor a right protected by specific constitutional guarantees.</p> <p>5. Laws 1912, Chapter 157. Applicability.</p> <p>Whether this or that person or corporation engaged in manufacturing comes within the purview of chapter 157, Laws 1912, or whether a particular laborer engaged to work is required to work in manufacturing within the meaning of this law, are questions of fact for the jury.</p>