State v. Newman Lumber Co.

Citations

• 102 Miss. 802
• 59 So. 923

Syllabus

<p>1. Constitutional Law. Health. Police power. Restrictions. Statutes. Manufacturing. Repairing. Restraint of freedom of contracts. Regulation of hours of employment. Chapter 157, Laws 1912.</p> <p>The Legislatures of the states have the right under their police power to enact proper laws to regulate and provide for the “safety, the health, the morals, and the general welfare of the public.”</p> <p>2. Constitutional Law. Legislature. Functions of courts.</p> <p>The duty of the courts is to construe the law and apply it to the case presented and it may decide ■ upon its constitutionality. But it is not for the court to decide whether a law is needed and advisable in the general government of the people; this is for the legislature to decide.</p> <p>3. Constitutional Law. Police power. Restrictions.</p> <p>A state cannot by its laws unduly and unnecessarily interfere with a person in the exercise of his inherent rights or the unlimited control and use of his property, but there was no purpose in the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prevent in any manner the state from making the proper regulations for the promotion of the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people.</p> <p>4. Laws 1912, Section 157. Construction. Manufacturing. Repairing. Definitions.</p> <p>Section 157, Laws 1912, which makes it unlawful for any employer in a certain class to work employees more than ten hours per day, except in cases of emergency, is not so general in its terms that it is dificult to limit those who may he engaged in manufacturing or repairing. “Manufacturing” may be defined as the system of industry which produces manufactured articles,' and to “manufacture” as the production of articles for use from raw or prepared materials, by giving to these materials new forms, quantities, and properties or combinations, whether by hand labor or machinery. “Repair” is to make whole or restore an article or thing to its completeness.</p> <p>5.