Court Opinion

ID: 9655770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:21:25.581481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:21.660210
License: Public Domain

*93LEEDOM, Judge
(dissenting). I cannot agree with the majority because I believe People v. Brown, 407 Ill. 565, 95 N.E.2d 888, on which we reversed the first Kadinger case is a sound decision. It condemns an arbitrary classification of plumbers under the Illinois law that I am convinced exists under the ordinance here involved, and results in a forced employer-employee relationship between master and journeyman plumbers wholly unwarranted. The very recent case of Schroeder v. Binks, Director of Registration and Education of the State of Illinois, Ill. Supp., 113 N.E.2d 169, confirms this interpretation of People v. Brown.
The Schroeder case, unmistakably it seems to me, holds the Illinois plumber’s law unconstitutional on two distinct grounds. The first, and the one that I deem controlling in the case at bar if our court had chosen to- follow the Illinois court, is the classification of equally proficient persons into the two categories of journeymen and master plumbers, restricting the activity of the former to working only under the supervision of the master. The decision of the Illinois court in the Schroeder case on this ground is completely independent of the second ground and the discussion concerning it ends midway in the opinion with the beginning of the paragraph that starts:- “People v. Brown did not deal only with the artificial categories of employer and employee which the 1935 act imposed”. With that sentence and in the balance of the opinion the Illinois court deals with the second ground of unconstitutionality of the Illinois law, that is, the monopolistic control over the avenues of entry into the plumbing business. It is only with respect to this second ground in the Schroeder case that the distinction made in the majority opinion has any application, the distinction made in the sentence: “The Illinois law required that an applicant for a license as a master plumber must have been licensed as a journeyman for at least one year.” Thus the first ground of unconstitutionality in the Schroeder decision following as it does People v. Brown condemns the Sioux Falls ordinance.
It is not clear to me what there is about the status of a master plumber over a journeyman plumber under this ordinance that the majority of the court see as a real protection to public health. As to inspection the journeyman ad*94mittedly does as good work as the master and under the ordinance is responsible for his work. His license may be revoked. His work and a master’s as well must be done under the supervision of a plumbing inspector and the cost of inspection is covered by a special fee schedule imposed on a journeyman’s and a master’s work alike. The introduction of the master plumber into such a scheme as a necessary middleman between his equally capable journeyman and the public seems clearly to me not to^ be for the benefit of the public’s health or safety but rather for the benefit of the master plumber. The justification appearing in the majority opinion for the classification, that is, “* * * the responsibility assumed by the master” seems to me an empty phrase in the light of the actualities of the situation.
The Supreme Court of Michigan in Hench v. Michigan State Plumbing Board, 289 Mich. 108, 286 N.W. 176, 180, took the view now shared by the Illinois court that supervision of all plumbing work by a master plumber was wholly unrelated to public health and safety. In this Michigan decision Chief Justice Butzel wrote a dissent but upon the ground that there is a real distinction in the skills of master, and journeymen plumbers, a distinction “which the trade itself has preserved for many years.” Insofar as I can ascertain all of the decisions that have justified the various classifications of plumbers have done so on the basis employed by Chief Justice Butzel, that is, a real difference in profiiciency. The Illinois and Michigan courts determined judicially that no longer does a real difference in profiiciency exist. In the case at bar the proponents of the ordinance come into court admitting with respect to journeymen and master plumbers that “Their qualifications are exactly the same * * By forsaking the view of the Illinois court on this issue and under this circumstance of admitted equal profiiciency this decision may occupy the novel position of being the only one in the reports justifying two classifications of plumbers admittedly having equal profiiciency in all phases of the trade and business of plumbing. The historic justification for such classification is lacking and in my opinion no other legal justification here exists.
The majority’s justification of the classificiation on the *95master’s assumption of extra responsibility I regard as insupportable. Since the qualifications of the two classes are equal a journeyman’s capacity for responsibility is equal to that of a master; but the ordinance denies him the privilege of fully utilizing his capacity unless he pays a $50 master’s fee as against $10 for the journeyman’s license. Nothing else stands in his way. Actually then the basis of the classification, — the only difference between a journeyman and a master plumber, — is the extra $40, a petty but nonetheless a discriminatory barrier to the journeyman’s full enjoyment of his constitutional right to follow his lawful occupation. It seems wholly obvious to me that no group equally qualified in all respects with another group to do certain work, can be lawfully required to pay in the form of a license or any other exaction more than the other group pays for the right to do the same work in the licensed field. My conception of the constitutional right to work includes as an inseparable part, the right to work well, to stand back of and be responsible for what I do and thus and only thus to enjoy the full fruits of my labor. It also includes the right to work carelessly if I choose and escape responsibility for what I do insofar as I am able; but that choice is up to me under the constitution and no government can deny me the right to work well and to enjoy the full benefits resulting therefrom. Thus it may be seen that the responsibility the master plumber enjoys to the exclusion of the journeyman, under the ordinance, is an inseparable part of the constitutional guarantee of the right to work that flows to all our citizens; but as the basis- of the classification under the majority opinion it ironically is used as the very justification for the denial of appellant’s right to work at full capacity.
I would reverse the judgment.