Territory of Alaska v. Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Co.

(dissenting).

I dissent. The majority’s construction of the act and amendment seems a technical straining to strike down a beneficent legislative enactment instead of a performance of our obligation to find it valid if it may be so found by the use of both formal logic and a liberal interpretation of facts judicially noticeable. It is my impression that the majority’s reasoning was outmoded a quarter of a century ago even in the states which had developed to the highest degree their overrefinement of technicality.

*566 Briefly summarized, it is my opinion that, considered in the light of our obligation, the act and amendment do “not embrace more than a single subject”. That subject is the compensation by employers for damage done by injuries to their employees sustained in the course of the latter’s employment.

As usual in such legislation this single broad subject of compensation for injuries includes a classification of injuries causing and not causing death, of the persons to whom the compensation for the damage done is to be paid and what is to be done with the compensation when collected. Each of these provisions is germane to the single subject. If they are not, very…

Concerning this and five similar cases, appellant, the Territory of Alaska, plaintiff below, and appellee, Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company, a West Virginia corporation, defendant below, have stipulated as follows:

Section 2161, Compiled Laws of Alaska 1933, was originally § 1 of c. 25, Session Laws of Alaska 1929, which became and is now Article 4 (§§ 2161 — 2203) of chapter 41, Title 2, Compiled Laws of Alaska 1933. Chapter 25 and Article 4 were and are, each of them, known as the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Alaska. Prior to March 14, 1935, §-2161 provided as follows:

Other paragraphs of subdivision (8) of § 2161 prescribed the compensation to be paid to injured employees in *562 cases where such injuries did not result in death. These paragraphs are not here involved and are, therefore, not quoted.

By an Act of the Territorial Legislature (Session Laws of Alaska 1935, c. 84, §§ 1-4) approved March 14; 1935, subdivisions (4), (5) and'(7) and the first paragraph of subdivision (8) of § 2161 were amended to read as follows:

Basing its claim on subdivision (8) of § 2161, as amended, appellant sought by this action to recover of appellee $4,000, with interest, for the death…