Keokee Consolidated Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U.S. 224 (1914)

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Keokee Consolidated Coke Company v. Taylor

Nos. 372

, 373

Submitted May 7, 1914
Decided June 8, 1914
234 U.S. 224

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS

OF THE STATE OF VIRINIA

Syllabus

This Court does not go behind the construction given to a state statute by the state courts.

A state statute aimed at an evil and hitting it presumably where experience shows it to be most felt is not unconstitutional under the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment because there might be other instances to which it might be equally well applied.

It is for the legislature to determine to what classes a police statute shall apply, and unless there is a clear case of discrimination, the courts will not interfere.

Section 3 of Chapter 391, Virginia Laws of 1888, reenacting the Act of 1887 aimed at the evil of payment of labor in orders redeemable only at the employers’ shops and forbidding certain classes of employers of labor to issue any order for payment thereto unless purporting to be redeemable for its face value in lawful money of the United States, is not an unconstitutional denial of equal protection of the law because it does not apply to other classes of employers who also own shops and pay with orders redeemable in merchandise.

The facts, which involve the constitutionality of a statute of Virginia providing for method of payment of employees of certain industries, are stated in the opinion.