Court Opinion

ID: 9809050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:59:12.345333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:11.636416
License: Public Domain

*378HoKe, J.,
dissenting: I cannot concur in tbe disposition made of tbis case, and am of opinion tbat a statute, plain in meaning and in tbe main beneficent of purpose, is likely to have tbis meaning obscured, and tbis purpose to a large extent frustrated by too much judicial construction. It bas always been considered desirable and necessary tbat tbe weights and measures of our people should conform to a known and established standard, for even when owned by private persons, they are not infrequently used by them and their neighbors in transactions of sale and barter, though not to such an extent as to make such persons regular dealers. Pursuant to this laudable purpose, there has been time out of mind,- in a section of our statute addressed to the question of weights and measures, a requirement that every person using weights and measures should bring all his weights, measures and steelyards to the standard-keeper of the county where such person shall reside or trade, and have them tried by the standard; and every trader or dealer by profession, and every miller, at least once in every two years thereafter, shall -cause their weights, measures, etc., to be examined and adjusted by said standard-keeper, . . . and every person using, buying and selling by weights and measures, who shall neglect tc> comply with the requisites of this section, shall forfeit $50.
This was the law in tbe Revised Statutes, enacted in 1836 and 1837, which bas the expression: “Every person, whatsoever, using weights and measures shall bring,” etc., and the penalty clause was evidently intended to apply to all persons mentioned in the former portions of the section, that' is, to every person, whatsoever, using weights and measures, and to every trader and dealer by profession, and to every miller, See Revised Statutes, ch. 120, sec. 4. The distinction in this law between ordinary persons and regular dealers and millers, was that the two last wore required to bring their weights to the standard-keeper every two years. - -
In the Code of 1856, the same law appears in substantially *379the same terms.' Revised Code, ch. 117, sec. .1, and also in the Code of 1883, in Yol. 2, sec. 38-41, in substantially similar terms, except that the word “balances and other instruments used in weighing” were' added to “weights, measures, and steel-yards,” this change having been made pursuant to an amendment in ch. 120 of the Laws of 1866 and 1867. This continued to be the law until the session of 1893, when the Legislature, being well aware of the increasing size 'of the different weights and measures coming into general use, making it difficult and well nigh impossible to carry some of them at least to the standard-keeper, and being impressed also with the increased importance of having these weights and measures conform to the standard, enacted that, instead of tbe owners bringing their weights, measures and other implements to the standard-keeper to have them examined and adjusted, it should be the duty of that officer to visit “every” sueh person using weights and measures, embracing balances and other implements used for weighing, and that they shall allow and permit this adjustment, and that this duty should be performed at least once in every two years. Laws of .1893* ch. 100, 207.
The capable and learned commissioners who framed the Eevisal of 1905, have incorporated this amendment into the statute on weights and measures, being ch. 77, sec. 3073, and being aware that in codifying laws it is generally desirable to make as little change as possible in terms used and approved, and the meaning of which has become known, they have placed the-amendment where it belouged, in the former portion of the section, leaving the portion referring to millers* traders and dealers by profession as it had always stood; and the law, as applicable to the question we are discussing, reads as follows:
“SectioN 3073. May Test Evtcby Two Yeaes — Penalty — Exception.—That every person using weights and measures and steel-yards, embracing balances and other in: *380struments used in weighing, shall allow and permit the standard-keeper of the county to try, examine and adjust by the standard at least every two years all the said weights, measures, steel-yards, embracing balances and other instruments used for weighing; and every trader or dealer by profession, and every miller, at least once in -every two years thereafter, shall permit their weights, .measures, etc.’, to be examined, adjusted, etc. . . . and every person using, buying or selling by weights and measures, who shall neglect to comply with the requisites of this section, shall forfeit $50.00.”
It was the reasonable and evident purpose of the law-makers to include within the penal clause, in the latter part of the section, all upon whom a duty was imposed in the former part, to allow the standard-keeper to examine and adjust their weights and measures, etc.; that is, every person txsing weights and measures, millers and all regular traders and dealers. And in the penalty clause they intend to, and did, employ terms sufficiently broad and comprehensive to include them all — every one using weights and measures, every one buying or selling by weights and measures, and the term “using” being sufficient to include millers and all toll-takers, these last were not repeated; and the codifyers in this penalty clause expressed the legislative intent, by .imposing the penalty on every person using, buying or selling by weights and measures. This is the clear import of the words from their definition, purpose and placing, and the position- finds support, if support were needed, by the fact that, in a different section of the act, sec. 3067, a-separate penalty is imposed for buying and selling on unadjusted and unstamped weights and measures.
The Court, it seems, being of opinion that to enforce the law as it is written might result in having domiciliary visits on the part of some over-zealous official to the disturbance of the serenity and calm of some imaginary “housewife,” do not, *381to my mind, interpret the law as it is written, applying it, as required, “to every person using, buying and selling by weights and measures/’ but have decided to strike out the. comma after “using” and insert the word “by” between the words “using” and “buying,” thus making the penal clause of the statute read: “And every person using by buying and selling by weight and measures who shall neglect, shall forfeit,” etc. And by what authority is this word to be added by the Court to a law which it is clearly within the province of the Legislature to enact ? It is a familiar principle of statutory construction that the meaning of a statute must first be sought in the language of the statute itself, and it is only where there is uncertainty in its meaning that construction is to be resorted to and words taken from and added to expressions which the Legislature has seen proper to make.
Says Black on Interpretation of the Law, sec. 26: “The meaning of a statute must first be sought in the language of the statute itself, and therefore, if the language is plain and free from ambiguity and express a simple, definite and sensible meaning, that meaning is conclusively presumed to be the meaning which the Legislarixre intended to convey.”
And this statement of the doctrine is fully supported in numerous and well considered decisions in courts of the highest authority, several of them cited and referred to in the opinion of the Court, notably in McCluskey v. Cornwell, 11 N. Y., 601, where Allen, J., for the Court, quotes with approval the rule as well expressed by Judge Johnson, in Newell v. The People (3 Selden, 97), in these words: “Whether we are considering an agreement between parties, a statute or a constitution, with a view to its interpretation, the thing we are to seek is the thought which it expresses. To ascertain this, the first resort, in all cases, is to the natural signification of the words employed, in the order and grammatical arrange-, ment in which the framers of the instrument have placed them. If thus regarded the words embody a definite mean---*382ing, wbicb involves no absurdity and no contradiction between different parts of the same writing, then that meaning apparent upon the face of the instrument is the one which alone we are at liberty to say was intended to be conveyed.” '
Indeed, as stated, it is a well recognized and accepted principle of statutory construction, that when the language of a statute has a definite meaning and its enactment is in the constitutional power of the Legislature, it is not for the courts to alter or set it aside, because they may deem its’ provisions unwise, or because, in-their judgment, it may lead to harmful results.
Said Nash, Chief Justice, in Taylor v. Commissioners, 55 N. C., 144: “Whether the Legislature acted wisely or not, is a question with which we have nothing to do. The power being admitted, its abuse cannot affect it; that must bo for the legislative consideration. It is sufficient that the judiciary claim to sit in judgment upon the constitutional power of the Legislature to act in a given case; it would be rank usurpation for us to enquire into the wisdom or propriety of their acts.”
And to what purpose is this alteration of the statute made ? One of the chiefest objects of the enactment of this law was to require that the weights and measures of the public millers of the country should be adjusted by the standard and kept free from suspicion, and yet the decision of the Court withdraws from the effect of the penal clause all public millers, for, as a rule, certainly in taking toll, they neither buy nor sell, in the ordinary acceptation o.f the term; and it withdraws also the weights and measures used in cotton gins, and the now very general method provided for weighing wagons of hay, and other heavy articles, the proprietors of these, as a rule, neither buy nor sell; and, as in this instance, the scales and balances used by railroads, and by which a large portion of the freight rates are fixed and collected, are likewise withdrawn from the penal effects of the statute; all because of an *383apprehension that there might be some abuse in the administration of the law to the annoyance of individual owners of these implements. This apprehension is not original with us. After the enactment of the statute, requiring the standard-keeper to visit all persons using weights and measures, several counties, considering that the law might be-subject to abuse by some over-zealous official, had themselves excepted from the effects of the statute. It was so in Lincoln, Gaston, Beaufort, and some other counties. In the counties of Camden and Currituck the period was changed from two to four years. By chap. 378 of the Laws of 1905, quite an elaborate provision was made as to the effects of the law in Wilson County, and it was enacted, as to that county, that: “When any person has had his weights and measures tried by the standard, and stamped or sealed as aforesaid, he shall not be required to have them tried by the standard again unless some responsible person in the county of Wilson shall make oath and file the same with the standard-keeper of said county that he has reason to believe that said weights and measures are not properly adjusted; that notice shall be given the owner of said weights and measures that complaint has been made under oath as aforesaid, and then the owner of said weights and .measures shall have them tried, as provided under this act, sec. 3841 of the Code, and be subject to the penalty of sec. 3842.” These ill-advised counties, desiring a change of the law, went to the Legislature for that purpose, erroneously supposing that that body only had the right to make alterations of the kind desired.
Even on grounds of expediency, and in reference to those persons whom the Court holds are not within the penal clause of the statute, the construction adopted is neither wise nor desirable. Where weights and measures are used for the purpose of exchange and sale, and this is frequently being done by private owners, though not to such an extent as to make them regular dealers, and when they are used for purposes *384of measuring toll, as at public mills, cotton gins, etc., or for establishing the amount to be paid for the carriage of freight, as in this instance, there is nothing more harmful than to have suspicion aroused and active as to the integrity of their weights. It is eminently desirable, even from their standpoint, to have the inspection of some public official, whose duty it is to interfere and whose action will serve to correct an erroneous impression concerning them and restore them to the confidence of the community.
Believing that the action of the Court is not grounded on right reason or sustained by any well considered authority, I am compelled to withhold my assent to the decision they have made 'in this case.