Perkins v. Barr

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Maryland Insurance Agency Company was incorporated by the Act of 1904, Chapter 246. It was authorized to carry on and conduct a general insurance and brokerage business. On the 13th of April, 1913, its affairs were placed in the hands of receivers by a decree of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

The assets of the company, as shown by the record, amounted to $5,086.56. The Auditor’s report and the account show that after paying Court costs, and some other expenses, and retaining the sum of five hundred dollars for the payment of further costs of suit, there remained in the hands of the receivers the sum of $2,603.82. The debts of the company amounted to $38,314.89. On Tune 24, 1914, B. Frank Barr filed a petition in the receivership case in which he asked that the receivers be directed to pay him the sum of one hundred and eighty-four dollars and seventy-four cents as a preferred claim for salary due for February and March, 1913.

His petition, after reciting the appointment of receivers, stated that from the first of March, 1912, until the appointment of the receivers he was employed by the Maryland Insurance Agency Company as its clerk, servant, salesman, employee, and_ as its ⁹³ manager for Salisbury, McL, at a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month; that at the time the receivers were appointed the Maryland Insurance Agency Company was indebted to him in the sum of one hundred and eighty-four dollars and seventy-four cents for wages and salary as manager for a portion of the month of February and for the month of March in the year 1913 as clerk, servant, salesman, employee and manager contracted not more than three months anterior to the appointment of receivers, and that no part of the said sum had been paid. The Court allowed the claim as a preference, subject, however, to the usual exceptions, and it was allowed as a preferred claim by the Auditor. Exceptions were filed to the ratification of the account, and from the order of the Court overruling the exceptions to the allowance of the claim as a preference the appeal in Number 83 was taken. S'eetion 15, Article 47 of the Code, provides that: “Whenever any person or body corporate shall make an assignment for the benefit of his, her or its creditors, or shall be adjudicated insolvent upon his, her or its petition, or upon the petition of any creditor or creditors, or shall have his, her or its property or estate taken possession of by a receiver under a decree of a court of equity, in the distribution of the property or estate of such person or body corporate, all the money due and owing from such person or body corporate for wages, or salaries to clerks, servants, salesmen or employees contracted not more than three months anterior to the execution of such assignment, adjudication of insolvency, or appointment of receiver, shall first be paid in full out of such property or estate, after payment of the proper and legitimate costs, expenses, taxes and commissions, and shall be preferred to all claims against the property and estate of such insolvent person or body corporate, except the lien claims of such persons as shall hold lien upon such property or estate, recorded at least three months prior to such assignment, adjudication or decree.” ⁹⁴ Section 15 of Article 47 of the Code of 1888 was a codification of Chapter 383 of the Acts of 1888, providing for the payment of wages and salaries due employees of insolvent employers.

That statute had relation to wages or salaries due to clerks, servants or employees. Section 15 of the Code of 1888 was repealed and re-enacted with amendments by 'Chapter 184 of the Acts of 1896. The effect of^this amendment was to make the wages or salaries of salesmen a preferred claim. It introduced an additional class of preferred creditors.

The object of this legislation, and the rules of construction applicable to it have been stated in a number of cases in this Court, more particularly in the cases of Lewis v. Fisher, 80 Md. 139 ; Casualty Insurance Company’s Case, 82 Md. 535 ; Roberts v. Edie, 85 Md. 181 , and Hess v. Jewell, 85 Md. 235 . In Lewis v. Fisher, supra, it was held that an attorney at law was not included within the designation of “employee.” The Court said: “We are not content to dispose of this question by adopting any of the varying definitions of the terms 'Wages,’ 'Servants’ and 'Employees,’ given in different lexicons, because there are well, recognized rules of construction which ought to control in the judicial interpretation of the statute. If we look to the object which the Legislature had in view in adopting this particular act, and if we bear in mind the familiar doctrine that the signification of the words used is to be gathered therefrom, and also from their association and collocation, there would seem to be but little, if any, difficulty in disposing of this contention. Now, the title of the original Act which forms the section of the Code referred to in the beginning of this opinion is 'An Act to provide for the payment of wages and salaries due employees of insolvent employers,’ and the obvious scope of the enactment is, in the language of Bacon, J., in Coffin v. Reynolds, 37 N. Y. 640 , when discussing a somewhat similar provision of a New York Statute, to 'protect the clases most appropriately described by the words used as those engaged in manual labor as dis ⁹⁵ tinguished from officers of the corporation or professional men engag’ed in its service; in short to afford additional relief to a class who usually labor for small compensation, to whom the moderate pittance of their wages is an object of interest and necessity, and who are poorly qualified to take care of their own concerns or look sharply after their employer.’ ‘To the language of the Act must be applied the rule common in the construction of statutes, that when two or more words of analogous meaning are coupled together they are understood to be used in their cognate sense, express the same relations and give color and expression to each other.’ Wakefield v. Fargo et al., 90 N. Y. 213 .

Or, as stated by Lord Bacon, ‘the coupling of the words together shows-they are to be understood in the same sense. Bac. Works, Vol. 4, p. 26; see also, Commonwealth v. DeJardin, 126 Mass. 46 . The word ‘employee,’ though generally and ordinarily quite comprehensive, cannot, if regard be had to the principle just stated, be given a wider meaning than the cognate words ‘clerks’ and ‘servants’ with which it is associated, but must be restricted in its signification so as to include only persons who perform the same kind of service that is due from clerks or servants. ‘A statute which treats of persons of an inferior rank cannot by any general word be so extended as to embrace a superior; the class first mentioned is to be taken as the most comprehensive; specialia generalibus derogant.

Black Intro., sec. 3; Sandimam, v. Breach, 7 B. & C. 96; Reg. v. Cleworth, 4 Best & S. 927; Kitchen v. Shaw, 6 A. & E. 729; Branwell v. Pennock, 7 B. & C. 536; Williams v. Golding, L. R. 1, C. P. 69; Broom’s Max. 625; Smith v. People, 47 N. Y. 337 , Allen, J., 90 N. Y., supra.’ Now, by no possible construction could an attorney at law be included under the term ‘clerk,’ and it is not unreasonable to suppose, looking to the subject-matter with which the Legislature was dealing, and to the mischiefs it intended to remedy, that the word ‘servant’ was used in the sense in which it was employed in the common law. * * * Thus in Gordon v. Jennings, L. R. 9 Q. B. D. 45, it was held under 33 ⁹⁶ and. 34 Vict. Ch. 30, which, prohibited the attachment of the wages of any servant, laborer or workman, that a secretary who was paid an annual salary in quarterly instalments was not included. And in Aikin, Administrator, v. Wasson, 24 N. Y. 482 , it was decided that under section 10 of the General Railroad Act of 1850, which made stockholders liable for all debts due or owing to any of the company’s laborers and servants for services performed for it, a contractor-to build a part of the road was not embraced. In Coffin v. Reynolds, 37 N. Y. 640, a secretary was held not to be included under the terms laborers, servants and apprentices.

In Wakefield v. Fargo et al., 90 N. Y. 213 , a bookkeeper and general manager was held not within the same words. In People v. Remington, 109 N. Y. 631 , by affirming the lower Court it was held that a superintendent at an annual salary, an attorney at law and salesmen on salaries and commission are not entitled to preference under the statute. In Tod v. Kentucky Union R. Co., 52 Fed. Rep. 241, contractors were held not to be employees.” In the Casualty Insurance Company's Case, supra, it was held that an insurance adjuster was not within the terms of the statute, the Court saying: “Now, it is clear, we think, that the word ‘employee’ as used in the statute was intended to have a limited meaning, and that it cannot he applied in its broadest sense, or as including every one in the service or employment of a corporation or individual. The object of the statute was to provide for the payment of the wages and salaries due a certain class of persons to whom such wage's or salaries were deemed always necessary for their support and maintenance.

The statute first provides for the payment of the wages and salaries of clerks, persons rendering mere clerical service, then, of servants or employees. The statute did not mean by employees persons rendering services of a higher degree than clerks. The duties of an adjuster being, as far as we are able to discover, of the character we have described, these officers, whilst in a general sense employees, ara peropisuoo oq uoiq.ou.i^suoo jo opur irej üq ^outtbo ⁹⁷ ployees in the limited and restricted meaning of that term as used in the statute. To hold otherwise would result in the inclusion of a large class of persons in the service of a company or individual as preferred creditors, though they are obviously not within the scope, purpose and object of the Code, under which provision is made for a preference. * * * But the Act of 1888 (Art. 47, sec. 15 of the Code), was