Petitioner
William Adair
Respondent
United States
Petitioner's Claim
That Adair's conviction under the Erdman Act, which made it a crime to fire an employee for belonging to a labor union, should be reversed.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Benjamin D. Warfield, Henry L. Stone
Chief Lawyers for Respondent
Charles Bonaparte, William R. Harr
Justices for the Court
David Josiah Brewer, William Rufus Day, Melville Weston Fuller, John MarshallHarlan I (writing for the Court), Rufus Wheeler Peckham, Edward Douglass White
Justices Dissenting
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna (William Henry Moody did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 January 1908
Decision
The Court reversed the petitioner's conviction by the lower court; the ErdmanAct was unconstitutional when it forbade firing an employee for belonging toa labor union.
Significance
The Adair decision strengthened the legal doctrines of liberty of contract and substantive due process, and it therefore limited the scope of federal and state regulation of working conditions.
In 1894, a violent strike broke out at the Pullman railroad yards in Chicago.When unrest spread to 27 other states, President Grover Cleveland used the army to crush the strike. In direct response to the Pullman strike, Congress passed the 1898 Erdman Act to help secure labor peace.
Erdman applied solely to railroads engaged in interstate commerce. The firstsections provided for mediation, conciliation, and bidding arbitration in industrial disputes. The tenth section, the one challenged in Adair, prohibited certain antiunion activities. Specifically, railroads could not make employees promise not to join a union (the so-called "yellow dog" contract). This same section also prohibited railroads from firing employees because of their union activity.
In October of 1906, William Adair, an official of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, fired O. B. Coppage solely because he belonged to the Order of Locomotive Firemen. When Adair was prosecuted and convicted, his attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court.
New Laws to Protect Workers' Rights
The Erdman Act was only one of numerous labor laws brought before the High Court from the 1880s. As the United States became more industrialized, both Congress and individual states passed laws regulating the conditions of workers.These laws limited hours of work, prohibited child labor, and improved the conditions of working women. They promoted safety and legalized worker's compensation for workplace injuries. They also outlawed "yellow dog" contracts andrequired employers to pay wages in cash rather than in company script.
Taken together, these labor laws greatly increased the power of governments in new ways. Were they a legitimate expression of congressional and state authority? There were few precedents in the traditions of American (and British)common law.
Gradually, the Supreme Court developed guidelines which overturned some federal and state labor laws. Liberty of contract was protected as part of due process under the Fifth Amendment, which states that "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." The Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Fifth and protected due process rights against state laws.
State governments could abridge these rights, but only under specific conditions. Article I of the Constitution empowers Congress to "regulate commerce .. . among the several states." As for the states, they have a police power toprotect public safety, health, and morals. However, for a law to be constitutional, it had to be directly connected to one of these legitimate goals: safety, health, or the regulation of interstate commerce. Governments could notact solely to redistribute power from business to organized labor.
The classic statement of freedom of contract came in Lochner v. New York (1905). In this case, the Court invalidated a state law limiting bakers toten hours of work a day. There was no direct connection, the Court ruled, between safety and fewer hours of work. Thus, "[s]tatutes of the nature of thatunder review, limiting the hours in which grown and intelligent men may labor and earn their living, are mere meddlesome interferences with the rights ofthe individual."
The Right to Fire Is Absolute
Oral arguments in Adair were presented in October of 1907, and the Court issued its decision on 27 January 1908. Writing for the majority, JusticeHarlan reversed Adair's conviction. Justices McKenna and Holmes issued separate dissents. Justice Moody, recently appointed and a former attorney general,disqualified himself.
Harlan's decision declared that the relevant section of the Erdman Act was unconstitutional. The law took away defendant Adair's liberty and property andthus was contrary to the Fifth Amendment. Throughout his decision, it shouldbe noted, Harlan personalized the argument by focusing on Adair and not the railroad which employed him. Harlan did this deliberately to avoid having to consider whether a corporation is a "person" protected by the Due Process Clause.
Harlan directly related Adair to the 1905 Lochner decision. Asin the earlier case, the Erdman law interfered with freedom of contract. An employer had the right to fire for any reason, just as an employee had the right to quit for any reason (which is the legal right justifying strikes). Thelaw gives equal protection to the employer's liberty to fire and the employee's liberty to quit. The Fifth Amendment protects these rights against actionsby the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment protects them against state governments.
Harlan did not turn liberty of contract into an absolute right. Under the Commerce Clause, Congress has broad authority to regulate and restrain contracts.
There is, however, simply no connection between membership in labor unions and the carrying on of interstate commerce. Labor unions seek to improve theirmembers' conditions. This is "an object entirely legitimate and to be commended rather than condemned." However, a person:
Harlan's opinion in Adair united and spoke for the Court. For the next30 years, the justices used the legal doctrines of liberty of contract and substantive due process to overturn a variety of regulatory laws. The Court did not fully and finally abandon these doctrines until the 1930s in response to the Great Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
Related Cases
William Adair
Respondent
United States
Petitioner's Claim
That Adair's conviction under the Erdman Act, which made it a crime to fire an employee for belonging to a labor union, should be reversed.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Benjamin D. Warfield, Henry L. Stone
Chief Lawyers for Respondent
Charles Bonaparte, William R. Harr
Justices for the Court
David Josiah Brewer, William Rufus Day, Melville Weston Fuller, John MarshallHarlan I (writing for the Court), Rufus Wheeler Peckham, Edward Douglass White
Justices Dissenting
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna (William Henry Moody did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 January 1908
Decision
The Court reversed the petitioner's conviction by the lower court; the ErdmanAct was unconstitutional when it forbade firing an employee for belonging toa labor union.
Significance
The Adair decision strengthened the legal doctrines of liberty of contract and substantive due process, and it therefore limited the scope of federal and state regulation of working conditions.
In 1894, a violent strike broke out at the Pullman railroad yards in Chicago.When unrest spread to 27 other states, President Grover Cleveland used the army to crush the strike. In direct response to the Pullman strike, Congress passed the 1898 Erdman Act to help secure labor peace.
Erdman applied solely to railroads engaged in interstate commerce. The firstsections provided for mediation, conciliation, and bidding arbitration in industrial disputes. The tenth section, the one challenged in Adair, prohibited certain antiunion activities. Specifically, railroads could not make employees promise not to join a union (the so-called "yellow dog" contract). This same section also prohibited railroads from firing employees because of their union activity.
In October of 1906, William Adair, an official of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, fired O. B. Coppage solely because he belonged to the Order of Locomotive Firemen. When Adair was prosecuted and convicted, his attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court.
New Laws to Protect Workers' Rights
The Erdman Act was only one of numerous labor laws brought before the High Court from the 1880s. As the United States became more industrialized, both Congress and individual states passed laws regulating the conditions of workers.These laws limited hours of work, prohibited child labor, and improved the conditions of working women. They promoted safety and legalized worker's compensation for workplace injuries. They also outlawed "yellow dog" contracts andrequired employers to pay wages in cash rather than in company script.
Taken together, these labor laws greatly increased the power of governments in new ways. Were they a legitimate expression of congressional and state authority? There were few precedents in the traditions of American (and British)common law.
Gradually, the Supreme Court developed guidelines which overturned some federal and state labor laws. Liberty of contract was protected as part of due process under the Fifth Amendment, which states that "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." The Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Fifth and protected due process rights against state laws.
State governments could abridge these rights, but only under specific conditions. Article I of the Constitution empowers Congress to "regulate commerce .. . among the several states." As for the states, they have a police power toprotect public safety, health, and morals. However, for a law to be constitutional, it had to be directly connected to one of these legitimate goals: safety, health, or the regulation of interstate commerce. Governments could notact solely to redistribute power from business to organized labor.
The classic statement of freedom of contract came in Lochner v. New York (1905). In this case, the Court invalidated a state law limiting bakers toten hours of work a day. There was no direct connection, the Court ruled, between safety and fewer hours of work. Thus, "[s]tatutes of the nature of thatunder review, limiting the hours in which grown and intelligent men may labor and earn their living, are mere meddlesome interferences with the rights ofthe individual."
The Right to Fire Is Absolute
Oral arguments in Adair were presented in October of 1907, and the Court issued its decision on 27 January 1908. Writing for the majority, JusticeHarlan reversed Adair's conviction. Justices McKenna and Holmes issued separate dissents. Justice Moody, recently appointed and a former attorney general,disqualified himself.
Harlan's decision declared that the relevant section of the Erdman Act was unconstitutional. The law took away defendant Adair's liberty and property andthus was contrary to the Fifth Amendment. Throughout his decision, it shouldbe noted, Harlan personalized the argument by focusing on Adair and not the railroad which employed him. Harlan did this deliberately to avoid having to consider whether a corporation is a "person" protected by the Due Process Clause.
Harlan directly related Adair to the 1905 Lochner decision. Asin the earlier case, the Erdman law interfered with freedom of contract. An employer had the right to fire for any reason, just as an employee had the right to quit for any reason (which is the legal right justifying strikes). Thelaw gives equal protection to the employer's liberty to fire and the employee's liberty to quit. The Fifth Amendment protects these rights against actionsby the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment protects them against state governments.
Harlan did not turn liberty of contract into an absolute right. Under the Commerce Clause, Congress has broad authority to regulate and restrain contracts.
Congress has a large discretion in the selection or choice of the means to be employed in the regulation of interstate commerce, and such discretion is not to be interfered with except where that which is done is in plain violation of the Constitution.
There is, however, simply no connection between membership in labor unions and the carrying on of interstate commerce. Labor unions seek to improve theirmembers' conditions. This is "an object entirely legitimate and to be commended rather than condemned." However, a person:
. . . will faithfully perform his duty, whether he be a member or not a member of a labor organization . . . It is the employee as a man and not as a member of a labor organization who labors in the service of an interstate carrier.
Harlan's opinion in Adair united and spoke for the Court. For the next30 years, the justices used the legal doctrines of liberty of contract and substantive due process to overturn a variety of regulatory laws. The Court did not fully and finally abandon these doctrines until the 1930s in response to the Great Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
Related Cases
- Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
- Phelps Dodge Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 313 U.S. 177 (1941)
- Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders Intern. Union Local 54 v. Danziger, 709 F.2d 815 (1983).
Further Readings
- Fiss, Owen. History of the Supreme Court of the United States. Volume VIII: Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
- Kens, Paul. Judicial Power and Reform Politics: The Anatomy of Lochnerv. New York. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.
- Semonche, John E. Charting the Future: The Supreme Court Responds to aChanging Society, 1890-1920. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978.
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