ducted from it the sum of $2176.21. The plaintiff struction within the meaning of its contract it agreed to the deduction claimed, and the Court would not have excepted from the same, "damhaving made it, entered judgment for the balance. age or destruction by lightning." The excepIf there was no misrepresentation or concealment tion of one from a number of like causes of damwhich vitiated the contract, and the language of age to or destruction of property was a recognithe latter fairly includes and imposes a liability tion by the insurer of its liability for loss arising for the loss caused by the flood or freshet, the from other causes of the same nature. The fact judgment should be sustained. The defendant that there had been floods in the Schuylkill becompany's main contention is that damage to or fore the occurrence of the one in question candestruction of property by a flood is not acciden- not affect the construction of the contract or the tal damage or destruction within the meaning of liability of the defendant company under it. its contract. This leads us to consider what an The company is presumed to know that which accident is. The definitions of an accident as is obvious in regard to the property insured, ingiven in the Century Dictionary are, among cluding the natural perils to which it is exposed: others, as follows: "I. In general anything that Western & Atlantic Pipe Lines v. Home Insurhappens, or begins to be without design, or as ance Co., 145 Pa. 346, and Louck v. Orient Inan unforeseen event." "2. Specifically, an unde-surance Co., 176 Pa. 638. In the absence of exsirable or unfortunate happening; an undesigned press stipulation, and where no inquiry is made, harm or injury; a casualty or mishap." In Bou- a failure to state facts known to the insurer or vier's Law Dictionary, accident is defined as "an his agent or which he ought to know, is no conevent which under the circumstances, is unusual cealment. The insurers are presumed to be skilland unexpected by the person to whom it hap-ed in their business and to know those general The happening of an event without the facts which are open to the public and may be concurrence of the will of the person by whose known to all who are interested to inquire: May agency it was caused; or the happening of an on Insurance, sec. 207; Armenia Fire Ins. Co. event without any human agency." In Ander- v. Paul, 91 Pa. 520, and Dwelling House Insurson's Law Dictionary, the following definitions ance Co. v. Hoffman, 125 Pa. 626, are to the of accidents are given, with citation of authorities: same effect. In the case in hand there was no "An event or occurrence which happens unex- concealment or misrepresentation by the assured. pectedly from uncontrolable operations of na- The hazards affecting liability to the public reture alone, and without human agency; or an lated to another branch of the indemnity promevent resulting undesignedly and unexpectedly ised by the insurer and obviously had no connecfrom human agency alone, or from the joint op- tion with the contract in question. Our conclueration of both. An event from an unknown sion is that there was nothing in the affidavit of cause or an unusual or unexpected event from a defence which constituted a complete or partial known cause; chance, casualty." A definition defence to the action and that the judgment apcorresponding substantially with those quoted pealed from was properly entered. pens. Superior Court. above may be derived from our own case of Judgment affirmed. W. C. S. Superior Court. February 10, 1897. Commonwealth v. Jones. 15, 1893, P. L. 52. is the result of an accident. It may be the con- Mines and Mining-Constitutional law—Act May sequence of a tornado, a flood or a thunderbolt. These as causes of the damage or destruction may be considered as in the same category. The deThere is nothing in the title to the Act of May 15, 1893, struction of a building by flood or freshet is as wit: providing for the lives, health, safety and welfare P. L. 52, that does not relate solely to its main object, to clearly accidental as the destruction of it by light- of persons employed'' in bituminous coal mines, and it is ning. If damage to or destruction of the prop- immaterial that the title proclaims that it "relates to bituerty by lightning was not regarded by the de-minous coal mines," so long as the protection of those fendant company as employed in the mines is clearly set forth as the object of accidental damage or de- the Act. The unity of the subject of a statute is to be determined tion, is that the subject of an Act of Assembly by its paramount purpose rather than by the details shall be clearly expressed in the title. through which that purpose is to be accomplished. It is not necessary that the title to an Act should refer specifically to matters legitimately implied from its purpose as indicated by the title. It is not necessary that the title of an Act shall refer to the penalty provided for the enforcement of its provisions. Com. v. Muir, 180 Pa. 47, and Com. v. Moore, 2 Pa. Super Ct. 162, followed. The Legislature has power to define and classify the business of coal mining. It is not necessary that the title of an Act should be a complete index of its contents. If it fairly give notice of the subject of the Act so as reasonably to lead to an inquiry into the body of the bill, it is all that is necessary. Com. v. Lloyd, 178 Pa. 309. W. Irvin Shaw, (Oscar Mitchell with him), for appellee. The Act of May 15, 1893, P. L. 52, is unconstitutional for the reason that it is in direct viola 1874. in Appeal of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from the judgment of the Quarter Sessions of tion of sec. 3, Art. III., of the Constitution of Clearfield County, entered in quashing an dictment of Daniel D. Jones, for illegally operThis Act contains more than one subject, asating a bituminous coal mine. The indictment (a) It provides for the operation and regulation charged that the defendant operated a bituminous of all coal mines in the State, not now included mine which had but one opening to the surface in the anthracite boundaries. from the seam of coal being operated, exclusive (b) The Act by sections 1 and 2 of Article of the furnace upcast; and unlawfully and willfully XXI. and by section I of Article XXII., did use furnace ventilation in said mine, contrary | makes certain acts as well as omission to perform to the form of the Act of the General Assembly certain acts in reference to any mine or shaft in such case made and provided, viz.: the Act of in the State, a misdemeanor. The acts and omisMay 15, 1893, P. L. 52. sions mentioned in Article XXI. and in the defiThe defendant moved to quash the indictment nitions of "coal mine," "excavation," "shaft," for the following reasons: "slope," "operator" and "superintendent," con"1. The Act of May 15, 1893, P. L. 52, contains tained in section 1, Article XXII., apply to all more than one subject. "coal mines," "shafts," "excavations," "slopes," "2. The Act is special legislation and includes "operators" and "superintendents," and to all peronly a portion of the bituminous coal mines of sons violating any of the provisions of said secthe State. tions in any part of the State of Pennsylvania. "3. The subjects contained in Act of May 15, 1893, are not clearly expressed in the title." The Court, GORDON, P. J., quashed the indictment and the Commonwealth appealed. A. H. Woodward, district attorney, and D. L. Krebs, (William Patterson and G. W. Zeigler with them), for appellant. The Act of May 15, 1893, P. L. 52, cannot be declared void as it does not palpably and plainly violate the Constitution. All the presumptions are in favor of the constitutionality of an Act of Assembly. Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Pa. 164. Laws which are of general application, affecting a large mass of the community, are entitled to more liberal construction than laws affecting individuals or small portions of the community. Dorsey's Appeal, 72 Pa. 195. (c) The first section of Article XXI. creates a new and distinct offence and applies to all persons whomsoever, whether included in the class of persons, operators, superintendents or foremen, elsewhere made the subject of the Act, or not, thus creating a new criminal offence and making liable an additional class of persons who are mentioned in no other portion of the Act, and who are not the subjects of any of the other provisions of the Act. (d) Again: By Article XXII. the Act furnishes an entirely new and arbitrary definition of the term "bituminous coal mine." The Act in question is also unconstitutional for the reason that the subject matter thereof is not clearly expressed in the title: Section 3, Article III., of the Constitution of 1874. The title of the Act in question is as follows: "An Act relating to bituminous coal mines, and providing for the lives, health, safety and welfare of persons employed therein." The title of an Act must not only embrace the The second constitutional requirement embrac- subject of proposed legislation, but also express ed in section 3 of Article III., of the Constitu- the same clearly and fully so as to give notice of the legislative purpose to those who may be also a difference in the strata of the two fields, and specially interested therein. In re Pottstown Borough, 112 Pa. 538. in their subterraneous conditions, which make necessary different methods and appliances in mining. During the early development and extension The Act of May 15, 1893, is unconstitutional of mining operations in Pennsylvania there was for the further reason that it is in direct violation a corresponding increase of casualties, with but of section 7 of Article III. of the Constitution: little methodical effort to prevent them. The ap"The General Assembly shall not pass any local palling disaster at Avondale, in 1869, demonstrator special law. . . . regulating labor, trade, mining or manufacturing." ed the urgent necessity of more effective measures for the protection of mine workers, and led to the passage of the general Act of March 3. 1870, entitled, "An Act providing for the health and safety of persons employed in coal mines." The moment we resort to geographical dis- This Act extended to all anthracite mines in the tinctions we enter the domain of special legisla- Commonwealth, and was followed by other ention for the reason that such classification oper- actments relating to anthracite and bituminous ates upon certain cities or counties to the per-coal mining. In 1885 the legislation on this subpetual exclusion of all others. The Act divides the State geographically, and legislates for one section to the perpetual exclusion of the other. Com. v. Patton, 88 Pa. 258. Frost v. Cherry, 122 Id. 417–426. ject was collated, revised, and embodied in two separate statutes, each providing an elaborate system of coal mining, one of which applied to mines. The subsequent statutes observe this distinction and relate to but one or the other of these divisions, and in all the legislation on the There is no dividing line between a local and the anthracite and the other to the bituminous general statute. It must be either one or the other. If it apply to the whole State, it is general. If to a part only, it is local. Appeal of City of Scranton School District, 113 Pa. subject, the differing needs of each coal field have 176-190. As a legal principle an Act is as effectually local when it applies to sixty counties out of the sixty-seven as if it applied to one only. exclusion of a single county from an Act makes it local. Davis v. Clark, 15 WEEKLY NOTES, 209. The been observed and provided for separately. The Act of May 15, 1893 is entitled, “An Act relating to bituminous coal mines and providing for the lives, health, safety and welfare of persons employed therein," and is an exact copy of the title to the Act of June 30, 1885, which it supersedes and supplies. Its punitive provisions are Appeal of City of Scranton School District, 113 Pa. to be found substantially, in all the general laws 176-190. Frost v. Cherry, 122 Id. 417. on the subject of coal mining, as well as in the local laws relating to Schuylkill and Mercer counties. Titles to all of these statutes will in like April 12, 1897. SMITH, J. David D. Jones, a manner be found to be substantially the same. In coal mine operator, was indicted under the second none is there any reference to a penalty for violasection of the twenty-first article of the Act of tion of the Act. May 15, 1893, charged with having violated the The title to the Act of 1893 indicates that, while provisions of the first and second sections of the it "relates to bituminous coal mines," its specific second article. The indictment was quashed on purpose is to protect the "lives, health, safety and the ground that the Act of Assembly under which welfare of persons employed therein," and an exit was framed is unconstitutional, whereupon the amination of its 129 sub-divisions shows that the Commonwealth appeals. contents of the Act are designed for that purpose, It is of common knowledge that coal mining by providing against the manifold dangers inciamong the chief industries of the Commonwealth, dent to mining. There is nothing in the statute in which thousands of persons are employed and that does not relate solely to its main subject, to millions of capital invested. We have both an- wit: "providing for the lives, health, safety and thracite and bituminous coal, in separate depos- welfare of persons employed" in bituminous coal its, divided by intervening lands where neither is mines. Considered in view of its manifest object, found. These geological divisions, commonly as expressed in the title, it is difficult to perceive called the "anthracite coal field" and the "bitum- upon what ground it can be said that the Act coninous coal field," are, in a general way, as well tains more than one subject. Clearly the terms understood by the people as are the geographical "lives," "health," "safety" and "welfare" all have and municipal subdivisions of the State. There is reference to the one purpose and subject of the Act--the protection of those employed in the 'such mines. Coal may be taken out of the ground mines; while the remainder of the title designates by farm owners for their own use, or it may be where this protection is to be furnished. taken in such small quantities and for such local The unity of the subject of a statute is to be purposes as to make the application of the mindetermined by its paramount purpose rather than ing laws to the operations so conducted not only by the details through which that purpose is to unnecessary but burdensome to the extent of abbe accomplished. The subject may have but one solute prohibition. Such limited or incipient opobject, while the measures necessary for the at-erations are not within the mischief to remedy tainment of that object may necessarily embrace which the mining laws were devised. They are many subordinate subjects, differing in their nat-ordinarily conducted for purposes of exploration ure and particular effect, yet all contributing to or for family supply, and ought not to be classed it, and comprised within the principal subject. with operations conducted for the supply of the Every thing which the nature of the subject of a public. The business of coal mining, like that of title reasonably suggests as necessary or appro- insurance or banking, may be defined by the Legpriate for the accomplishment of its expressed islature. The definition found in the Act of 1891 purpose, is sufficiently indicated by such title. seems reasonable, to be within the fair limits of The legislation of 1885 in relation to the an- ja legislative definition, and to exclude only such thracite coal mines was supplemented by the operations as are too small to make the general Act of June 2, 1891 (P. L. 176). That Act applies regulations provided by the Act applicable to to all anthracite coal mines employing more than them. The ground on which we place our judgten persons, and enumerates the counties to be ment is not, therefore, that the Act is local": affected by it. The legislation of 1885 in relation WILLIAMS, J. to bituminous coal mines was supplemented by With respect to mining operations and the the Act of May 15, 1893 (P. L. 52). It is with the safety of the persons engaged therein, the Acts latter Act that we have to deal. It includes "all of 1891 and 1893 follow similar lines, the differcoal mines in the State not now included in the ences in their provisions being due chiefly to the anthracite boundaries," except those "employing difference between the two classes of mines, in less than ten persons in any one period of twenty- physical conditions and methods of operation. four hours." Whether, as suggested in the ap- The language of the Supreme Court respecting pellee's argument, there may be other varieties the Act of 1891, in relation to anthracite mines, of coal than bituminous in the territory des- has like application to the Act of 1893 in relacribed in this Act, in the mining of which ten or tion to bituminous mines. Nothing can well be more persons are daily employed, is not added to the exposition of the grounds on which material. Should there be such, the question whe- the constitutionality of the Act of 1891 rests; and ther they are properly described in the title the Act of 1893 unquestionably stands of the Act, and therefore fall within its provis-same grounds. The "anthracite boundaries" ions, may well be considered when it arises. Their mentioned in the Act of 1893, evidently refer to existence cannot affect the operation of the Act the anthracite region, where that class of coal is on the class of mines to which its language ex-found and to which the provisions of the Act of pressly applies. 1891 exclusively apply. The practical scope and now on the The question to be determined here is whether application of both Acts are necessarily limited this Act is unconstitutional, (1) In being local or to their respective fields, in recognition of fixed special legislation; (2) In containing more than physical conditions and their special requirements. one subject; (3) In containing provisions not inThe ground of unconstitutionality especially dicated by its title. The first and second of these urged in the present case is that the title gives no views may be considered together. intimation of a penalty, or that any Act previousThe power of the Legislature to define and ly lawful is to be declared criminal. This objecclassify coal mines as it has done, and to legislate tion is without foundation. It is not necessary for each class separately, must, on the authority that the title should refer specifically to matters of Durkin v. Kingston Coal Co., 171 Pa. 193. be legitimately implied from its purpose as indicated regarded as beyond question. In that case, though the declaratory, the directory, the remedial, and by the title. The essential parts of a statute are holding one provision of the Act of 1891 uncon- the vindicatory; and if its title clearly express the stitutional, the Supreme Court said: "We are subject to which the statute is to apply, it is suffinot prepared to hold the Act of 1891 unconstitu- cient, without expressing in detail the character tional as a whole. It relates to all anthracite of the several parts. It is apparent that the prescoal mines, and defines what shall be regarded as ent statute is necessary only because the lives, health, safety and welfare of persons employed of those counties. The subject of each title is in bituminous coal mines are not adequately se- single and, in its nature, indivisible. cured by voluntary action. They can be provided Speaking for myself, I regard it important, in for only through regulations adapted to that end, considering the constitutional prohibition of “any and such regulations can be effectively enforced local or special law" upon the subjects enumeraby affixing a penalty to their violation. Such a ted in Article III., section 7, to take into account penalty is implied in the expression of a purpose the provision of Article XVI., section 3, that "the to which it is a necessary adjunct. This princi- exercise of the police power of the State should ple has been recognized in several instances. The never be abridged." Act of May 13, 1887, P. L. 108, entitled "An Act It is difficult to regard the latter provision as to restrain and regulate the sale of vinous and merely aimed at a legislative abridgment of the spirituous, malt or brewed liquors, or any admix- police power of the State. The legislation may tures thereof," contains penal provisions, without forbear or neglect to exercise the police power, which its declaratory and directory provisions but no legislative enactment on the subject can would be ineffective; and its title was held suffi- abridge the power of a subsequent Legislature cient to embrace the penal provisions: Com. v. in the premises, and this principle exists indepenSellers, 130 Pa. 32. In Com. v. Muir, 1 Pa. Super. dent of the constitutional provision. Ct. 578, we held that the title of the Act of July These prohibitive provisions are to be so con2, 1895, P. L. 428, “An Act to regulate and license strued that both shall stand, if possible. If the public lodging houses in the different cities in prohibition of the local or special legislation inthis Commonwealth," sufficiently expressed the cludes the exercise of the police power in rela provision of a penalty for a violation of the Act; tion to local or special subjects, it is a serious and the Supreme Court (180 Pa. 47,) pronounced abridgment of that power. The broad and unthe Act "so obviously constitutional and valid qualified terms of the section relating to the pothat discussion of the subject is unnecessary." In lice power would seem to imply that no abridgCom. v. Moore, 2 Pa. Super. Ct. 162, in an opin- ment in any manner was intended. Full effect ion by our brother ORLADY, we upheld the con- may be given to this section by regarding it as a stitutionality of a penal provision in the Act of qualification of the prohibition of local or special March 22, 1887, P. L. 8, entitled "An Act for the legislation, in the nature of a proviso, excepting protection of livery stable keepers." No decis- from that prohibition the exercise of the police ions are to be found in this State inconsistent power of the State on the subjects embraced in with these. In Hatfield v. Com., 120 Pa. 395, it. Such a construction would harmonize the two and Com. v. Frantz, 135 Pa. 389, the titles dis- constitutional prohibitions, and permit an tinctly limited the scope of the Acts; the one be- abridged exercise of the police power on all mating "An Act to prohibit the issuing of licenses ters within its scope, whether general, or local or within two miles of the normal school at Mans- special, leaving to judicial construction, as herefield, Tioga county, Pennsylvania," and the other, tofore, the character and limitations of that "An Act to prohibit the issuing of licenses to sell power. spirituous, vinous, malt or brewed liquors in the In this view, the Act of 1893, even if local or boroughs of Conneautville and Springs in the special in its application, may be sustained as an county of Crawford." The purpose of these Acts, exercise of the police power of the State, for the as set forth in their titles, being only to forbid protection of life, health and property in the minthe issue of licenses, penalties for unlicensed sales ing operations to which it relates. But it is unwere held to form no part of the subjects thus ex-necessary to rule the present case on this conpressed; unlawful sales were subject to the penal-struction of these constitutional provisions. ties prescribed by the general laws. The titles For the reasons given on behalf of the Court, of these statutes indicate limitations on the power the specification of error is sustained, the order of the Courts in granting licenses, without refer- of the Court below quashing the indictment is ence to the liquor traffic. They in no way pretend reversed, the indictment is reinstated and a proto affect any other person or subject, while the cedendo awarded. purpose expressed could relate only to the Courts W. D. N. un |