Slocum

This is an appeal by the receivers of the corporation defendant from a judgment declaring and enforcing certain asserted liens of plaintiffs upon the property of the corporation, and from an order denying a new trial. The liens are based upon the act of the legislature entitled, “An act to provide for the payment of the wages of mechanics and laborers employed by corporations,” approved May 31, 1891. (Stats. 1891, p. 195.) The act is quoted in full in former decisions of this court hereinafter referred to and need not be republished here.

It is contended by appellants that the act in question is unconstitutional for various reasons, and, among others, for the rea *556 son that it is special legislation inhibited by the constitution, because it attempts to provide for the creation of liens in favor of a special class of laborers, and thus attempts a mere arbitrary classification not founded upon natural differences, or differences defined by the constitution, within the meaning of the principle declared in Darcy v. Mayor etc. of San Jose, 104 Cal. 642 , and other decisions of this court to the same point. This contention is correct if the sa’d act provides a lien only for those…

I dissent. The first section of the act of March 31, 1891 (Stats. 1891, p. 195), reads as follows: “Every corporation doing business in this state shall pay the mechanics and laborers employed by it the wages earned by and due them, weekly or monthly, on such day in each week or month as shall be selected by said corporation.”

No rule of statutory construction is more firmly established than this: that if an act of the legislature is open to two constructions, one of which harmonizes with the constitution and the other does not, the latter must be rejected. Now, whatever may be the more obvious meaning of the section above quoted, regarded by itself and without reference to the constitutional limitations upon the power of the legislature, it cannot be denied that, without doing violence to the language employed, it may be held to mean simply this: that every corporation employing laborers and mechanics is required to establish a regular pay day in each week or in each month, as it may elect, and on that day to pay all wages then earned and due, no matter what the term of employment. No reason can be given for rejecting this construction, except that in two cases formerly decided…