Sunday Laws | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 15, 1875

Sunday Laws.

NEARLY all the older States have on their statute-books some severely strict laws about the due observance of Sunday, which are enforced only in exceptional cases, and usually do injustice then.

In a recent case in Massachusetts, a poor mechanic of Boston brought suit against that city for damages suffered by falling from the approach to a bridge into the water. The bridge had been swung open on a dark night, and left open. The lamps on the approach were not lit, and no barrier was put up. It was so clearly a case of gross negligence that the city had to seek some other defense than that of due care. The mechanic was walking, when he fell, to see a man who had promised him work, and he was walking on a Sunday evening. The City Attorney raked out of the statute-book of the State an old act which forbade such a use of the day, and the plaintiff was non-suited, on the ground that the law would not grant redress for an injury incurred while its sufferer was breaking the law.

There are other cases of equal injustice. Thus, in Connecticut, contracts made on Sunday are void, and money paid on that day for goods which are not subsequently delivered cannot be recovered.

We are glad to note the fact that the courts are beginning to interpret these rigid statutes, the relics of a mode of thought and life which finds few followers now, with a wise liberality. The Supreme Court of New York has held that the statute of that State which forbids any person to “expose to sale” anything except meats, milk, and fish on Sunday, and makes the exception end at at 9 A. M., is intended merely to stop public sales, and does not invalidate any private contract, made in a quiet and orderly way. So a note given or dated on Sunday is good.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has recently rendered a decision which displays the acme of art in getting around the Kentucky law which forbids contracts. The decision lays down the following rules: In general, contracts made in contravention of an express statute are void. This is not, however, exactly the case with those made on Sunday. The latter are illegal only in the element of time. When they are purged of this they become valid. Purgation takes place when they are subsequently affirmed, by word or deed. If one party has paid or done anything under the contract, and the instrument is not affirmed, he may demand restitution or compensation. Then, if the second party refuses such restitution or compensation, he is to be considered as having affirmed the contract!

This is very neat. It makes cheating under the pretense of observing Sunday an impossibility. Now that a court of large jurisdiction has taken this liberal view of a law that should be obsolete, it is reasonable to suppose that its views will obtain also in other States.—Chicago Tribune.