Court Opinion

ID: 9573660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:29.808301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:17.176157
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
specially concurring:
In concurring with the majority, I wish specially to point out that the interpretation of the statute here under consideration has given recognition to sound principles and techniques of statutory interpretation.
First, it has long been the rule, formulated as far back as 1584 by Lord Coke, that statutory law should be applied according to the spirit of the legislative body and that the determination of the intention of the legislature remains the principle objective of judicial interpretation. So in approaching the problem the court, through the author of the opinion — faced with a resolution of a full and true interpretation of the statute — had before it four questions: 1. What was the law before the making of the act; 2. what was the mischief for which the law did not provide; 3. what remedy did the legislature appoint to cure the disease, and 4. the true reason of the remedy. And then, as Lord Coke put it, “the office of all the judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief, advance the remedy, * * * suppress subtle invention and evasions for continuance of *39the mischief, * * * add force and life to the cure and remedy, according to the true intent of the makers of the act for the public benefit.”
The rule has been reformulated, expanded, restricted, explained, and rephrased, but the application of the law according to the spirit of the legislative body remains the principal objective of judicial interpretation. 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, sec. 4501.
Application of these principles leads one to the inescapable conclusion that there was not in 1943, when the Labor Peace Act was adopted, any mischief attendant in the operations of hospitals by the persons charged with that grave responsibility. So when the legislature had before it questions of industrial peace and the promotion of the production of goods and services, it had not conceived that there should be or would be encompassed in the act an employer such as the plaintiff in error here. It is within the power of the courts to bring within the object, spirit and meaning of a statute a situation which may not be strictly within the letter of the act. Burke v. Industrial Commission, et al., 368 Ill. 554, 15 N.E. (2d) 305, 119 A.L.R. 1152. So also the converse is true that the courts should place outside of the act those who are not intended to be encompassed therein even though broad language may, by liberal interpretation, blanket them.
It is equally a sound technique of statutory interpretation to give force and meaning to the public policy, particularly where it is set forth by the legislature, as a preamble to an act. Public policy retains a place of great importance in the process of statutory interpretation, and the tendency of the courts has always been to favor an interpretation which is consistent with public policy. See 3 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, sec. 5901, and cases cited under footnote 1.
It should not be overlooked that another guide to an answer to the problem presented by this writ of error is the long continued contemporaneous and practical inter*40pretation of the statute by the officers charged with its administration, and by the public. It is to be noted that for seventeen years there was no effort in any direction to apply this act to the situation here at hand.
It is my considered judgment that the broad application of the statute as is urged here would not cure any mischief or foster any advancement in the realm of industrial peace, but to the contrary would create such other mischief as to endanger the health and welfare of the public. That, in my opinion, outweighs the privilege sought by these individuals who are still free to engage in or not, as they see fit, this high calling of caring for the sick and the injured.