Court Opinion

ID: 3591605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:40:08.243145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:08.417748
License: Public Domain

Whatever may be my own views as to the wisdom or fairness of the statute before us, I am entirely clear that it is constitutional and that the question is settled by the decision both of the United States Supreme Court and of this court.
These decisions establish the proposition that the state in the prosecution of a public work stands in just the same position as an individual; that it may prescribe the conditions on which it will contract for such work; and that it may make the violation of his contract on the part of the contractor a criminal offense. It is so held in Atkin v. Kansas (191 U.S. 207, 223) where the Supreme Court of the United States said that "no employee is entitled, of absolute right and as a part of his liberty, to perform labor for the state; and no contractor for public work can excuse a violation of his agreement with the state by doing that which the statute under which he proceeds distinctly and lawfully forbids him to do." This language was quoted with approval by this court in People ex rel. Williams Eng.  Contr.Co. v. Metz (193 N.Y. 148) and the doctrine therein declared thus *Page 174 
received the sanction of all the judges who sat in that case.
In Ellis v. United States (206 U.S. 246, 256), which involved the validity of a Federal labor law, it was held that "the government purely as a contractor, in the absence of special laws, may stand like a private person, but by making a contract it does not give up its power to make a law;" and in the exercise of this power it may declare a violation of his contract by the contractor to be a crime. In answer to a suggestion that the purpose of the statute was to secure to labor certain advantages in conditions over which Congress has not general control, Mr. Justice HOLMES said that the existence of such a motive would not render a law unconstitutional which was otherwise valid and that the power which Congress has over the mode in which contracts with the United States shall be performed could not be limited by a speculation as to motives.
However subsequent legislation or adjudications may have modified the effect of the decision in People v. Orange CountyRoad Construction Co. (175 N.Y. 84, 90) it still remains true, as was said by Judge CULLEN in that case, that "if the state itself prosecutes a work it may dictate every detail of the service required in its performance; prescribe the wages of workmen, their hours of labor, and the particular individuals who may be employed. * * * The state in this respect stands the same as its citizens."
How great the rights of private citizens are in their status as employers is aptly illustrated by Jacobs v. Cohen (183 N.Y. 207) where this court held that the contract between an employer and a labor union whereby the employer agreed for a certain period to employ only members of the union was not violative of public policy or otherwise forbidden by law. In the opinion we reiterated the assertion made in National ProtectiveAssociation, etc., v. Cumming (170 N.Y. 315, 341) that every man *Page 175 
has a right "to carry on his business in any lawful way that he sees fit. He may employ such men as he pleases and is not obliged to employ those who, for any reason, he does not wish have work for him."
It seems to me that the only constitutional prohibition which can be relied upon with any confidence to invalidate the statute forbidding the employment of aliens upon the public works of this state, is the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution which declares that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
If it is a denial of the equal protection of the laws for an employer of labor to refuse to afford a designated class of persons an opportunity to work for him, it must be conceded that this statute was enacted in disregard of the constitutional provision thus invoked.
I can find no reason to suppose, however, that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to limit or restrict the rights of a state as an employer of labor. Other employers, individual or corporate, possess the undoubted and absolute right to withhold employment from whomever they see fit. The Constitution could hardly have been intended to deprive the states of equality with private employers in this respect; yet if the Fourteenth Amendment invalidates the statute in question, the great railroad corporation which is erecting its new building in Albany to-day may refuse to allow aliens to work upon it, while the state of New York, in repairing the capitol, must give aliens an equal opportunity with citizens to aid in its reconstruction.
The statute is nothing more, in effect, than a resolve by an employer as to the character of his employees. An individual employer would communicate the resolve to his subordinates by written instructions or by word of mouth. The state, an incorporeal master, speaking through the legislature, communicates the resolve to its agents by enacting a statute. Either the private *Page 176 
employer or the state can revoke the resolve at will. Entire liberty of action in these respects is essential unless the state is to be deprived of a right which has heretofore been deemed a constituent element of the relationship of master and servant, namely, the right of the master to say who his servants shall (and therefore shall not) be.
If the alien labor law under consideration is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, the preference given to veterans by the Constitution of the state of New York must likewise be invalid. (Const. of New York, art. V, sec. 9.) Appointments and promotions in the civil service of the state and of all civil divisions thereof, including cities and villages, are thereby required to be made according to merit and fitness to be ascertained as far as practicable by examinations, which so far as practicable shall be competitive; "provided, however, that honorably discharged soldiers and sailors from the army and navy of the United States in the late civil war, who are citizens and residents of this state, shall be entitled to preference in appointment and promotion, without regard to their standing on any list from which such appointment or promotion may be made." Here is a preference in the public service based wholly upon a status acquired half a century ago, and a preference of one class of citizens over all others. There could not be a clearer case of discrimination. I think that the Federal Constitution permits such discrimination; but I should not think so if it be held that the statute in question here is in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.
The differences of opinion upon the present appeal are necessarily radical and depend upon the question whether the denial of an opportunity to work for the state is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. For the reasons which I have briefly stated, in addition to those set forth so clearly and cogently in the opinion of my brother CARDOZO, I think this question must be answered in the negative. I do not believe that either the Fourteenth *Page 177 
Amendment or any other of the constitutional provisions relied upon by the respondent was designed to limit the right of the state to choose its own servants.