Appellant
Joseph Lochner
Appellee
People of the State of New York
Appellant's Claim
That Lochner had not violated the New York Bakeshop Act because the law was an unreasonable exercise of police power.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Frank Harvey Field, Henry Weismann
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Julius M. Mayer, attorney general of New York
Justices for the Court
David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, Melville Weston Fuller, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna, Rufus Wheeler Peckham (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William Rufus Day, John Marshall Harlan I, Edward Douglass White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 April 1905
Decision
In protecting the right to contract for labor, the Court overruled New York'sBakeshop Act, which regulated sanitary conditions and the number of hours that employees could work.
Significance
Lochner v. New York postponed protective legislation for women for decades, becoming one of the most controversial decisions in the history of theSupreme Court.
Lochner v. New York began in the Guilded Age and ended in the Progressive Era when laissez-faire capitalism began to clash with a new reforming impulse in America. The conflict embroiled Joseph Lochner, owner of a tiny bakery in Utica, New York, that made biscuits, breads, and cakes for early-morning customers. Lochner's employees worked late, sometimes sleeping overnight on the premises. In April 1901, baker Aman Schmitter labored more than sixty hours a week.
Receiving a complaint, police arrested Lochner, charging him with violating New York's Bakeshop Act. The law set minimum standards for sanitation and fixed the number of hours that the mostly male bakers could work--at no more thanten hours a day or sixty hours a week.
Approximately ten months after his arrest, Lochner's case went to trial in the county court. Lochner refused to plead either guilty or innocent and offered no defense, intending to appeal. This tactic left Judge W. T. Dunmore onlytwo choices: to sentence the defendant to a fifty-dollar fine or fifty days in jail. On the same day of the conviction, Lochner's attorney, William S. Mackie, filed an appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York.
He argued that the Bakeshop regulations interfered with Lochner's right to earn a living, a liberty protected under the U.S. Constitution. Three of five judges disagreed, believing that the statute was a valid exercise of the state's power. Again Mackie appealed and lost.
A Baker's Lawyer
Finally, Lochner changed attorneys. His new lawyer, Henry Weismann, was an unlikely advocate. Ten years earlier he had been a lobbyist for the JourneymanBakers Union and editor of the union's newsletter, the Bakers' Journal. He had urged his comrades to agitate for the eight-hour bakeshop law.
Resigning from the Bakers' Journal in 1897, Weismann opened two bakeries of his own. He joined forces with the Retail Bakers' Association to dilutethe impact of the Bakeshop Act. As he told the New York Times, "The truth . . . is that I have never been in sympathy with the radicals in the labor movement."
Weissman, who had not passed the bar, asked attorney Frank Harvey Field to join him. The key argument of the new team was that the Bakeshop law violated adoctrine called "liberty of contract"--meaning the right to operate a business, or contract one's labor, so long as this did not interfere with the equalrights of others. State courts embraced this doctrine during the late nineteenth century. (One example was an 1886 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision tooverrule a law that required coal miners to be paid in cash, not goods.)
However, critics argued that the state already placed restrictions on contracts, such as prohibiting the practice of medicine without a license. They claimed the "liberty of contract" doctrine protected the exploitation of workers,who were the weaker parties in labor contracts.
At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court had only once used "liberty of contract"to overrule a state law (in Allgeyer v. Louisiana [1897]). Mostly, theCourt preferred to leave state laws intact. So Field and Weismann faced an uphill battle when they argued that the Bakeshop Act had violated the libertyof contract of the workers and employers of New York State. Baking was not adangerous profession, they said, and the Bakeshop Act, as it concerned hours,was never intended to protect the health of employees. Instead it was a prohibitive labor law, an illegitimate use of the police power of the state, because it deprived bakers of their due process rights.
Due Process and Daniel Webster
In 1819, Daniel Webster had argued that in nullifying the charter of a private college, New Hampshire had performed a semi-judicial act that had, in effect, deprived Dartmouth of its "substantive due process" rights under the FifthAmendment of the Constitution.
The Weissman-Field team--elaborating on this theory that a state may not invade the rights of persons or property--posed a series of questions to test whether legislators truly had the health and safety of the public in mind when they passed a law:
Julius M. Mayer, the newly appointed attorney general, made a surprisingly brief 18-page response. He said baking required heavy lifting and carrying; because of the flour dust and germs in the air, lung diseases sickened workers.Tuberculosis killed many of them. Therefore, the state could regulate work hours for the public good.
A Surprise Verdict
By a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court preferred elevated liberty of contract over the rights of employees to a safe workplace and reasonable hours. Speaking forthe Court, Justice Rufus Peckham said:
Justice Harlan, six-feet-two-inches tall--who, according to his wife, "walkedas if the whole world belonged to him"--joined White and Day in dissenting.Harlan quoted professors and writers who felt baking was a hard occupation, and pointed out that Congress and nearly all the states had passed laws concerning "particular occupations involving the physical strength and safety of workmen . . . Many, if not most, of those enactments fix eight hours as the proper basis of a day's labor." He was referring to hazardous jobs, such as mining.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, on the Court less than two years, also dissented in aseparate opinion that people quoted for years to come. He put his finger on the unspoken assumption of the majority:
Effect on Women
For years the economic rights upheld in Lochner v. New York were usedto invalidate laws regulating the hours, wages, and work conditions of women(for instance, Adkins v. Children's Hospital in 1923). During the 1930s, the Court relied on Lochner to frustrate the New Deal legislation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making it a symbol of unfairness. In 1940,the Court formally disavowed the Lochner philosophy in United States v. Darby. By this time, most states had already enacted laws protecting womenin the workplace. In the climate of reform, few imagined the disastrous effects that the laws-despite their immediate relief--would have on women's employment opportunities.
Protective legislation for women may have harmed as well as helped female workers. Because women were "protected" from performing equally with men in lifting, working night shifts, selling spirits, and working while pregnant--to give a few examples--they suffered disastrous economic discrimination. Since they could not compete equally with men, they did not earn equal wages, obtainthe same jobs, win promotions, or receive equal benefits. In 1964, the CivilRights Act, Title VII, brought the promise of relief. Seven years later, theSupreme Court for the first time sued a company under the act for sex-discrimination. The case was United States v. Libbey-Owens-Ford, and it marked an historic turning point in the equal treatment of women in the workplace.
Related Cases
Joseph Lochner
Appellee
People of the State of New York
Appellant's Claim
That Lochner had not violated the New York Bakeshop Act because the law was an unreasonable exercise of police power.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Frank Harvey Field, Henry Weismann
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Julius M. Mayer, attorney general of New York
Justices for the Court
David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, Melville Weston Fuller, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna, Rufus Wheeler Peckham (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William Rufus Day, John Marshall Harlan I, Edward Douglass White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 April 1905
Decision
In protecting the right to contract for labor, the Court overruled New York'sBakeshop Act, which regulated sanitary conditions and the number of hours that employees could work.
Significance
Lochner v. New York postponed protective legislation for women for decades, becoming one of the most controversial decisions in the history of theSupreme Court.
Lochner v. New York began in the Guilded Age and ended in the Progressive Era when laissez-faire capitalism began to clash with a new reforming impulse in America. The conflict embroiled Joseph Lochner, owner of a tiny bakery in Utica, New York, that made biscuits, breads, and cakes for early-morning customers. Lochner's employees worked late, sometimes sleeping overnight on the premises. In April 1901, baker Aman Schmitter labored more than sixty hours a week.
Receiving a complaint, police arrested Lochner, charging him with violating New York's Bakeshop Act. The law set minimum standards for sanitation and fixed the number of hours that the mostly male bakers could work--at no more thanten hours a day or sixty hours a week.
Approximately ten months after his arrest, Lochner's case went to trial in the county court. Lochner refused to plead either guilty or innocent and offered no defense, intending to appeal. This tactic left Judge W. T. Dunmore onlytwo choices: to sentence the defendant to a fifty-dollar fine or fifty days in jail. On the same day of the conviction, Lochner's attorney, William S. Mackie, filed an appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York.
He argued that the Bakeshop regulations interfered with Lochner's right to earn a living, a liberty protected under the U.S. Constitution. Three of five judges disagreed, believing that the statute was a valid exercise of the state's power. Again Mackie appealed and lost.
A Baker's Lawyer
Finally, Lochner changed attorneys. His new lawyer, Henry Weismann, was an unlikely advocate. Ten years earlier he had been a lobbyist for the JourneymanBakers Union and editor of the union's newsletter, the Bakers' Journal. He had urged his comrades to agitate for the eight-hour bakeshop law.
Resigning from the Bakers' Journal in 1897, Weismann opened two bakeries of his own. He joined forces with the Retail Bakers' Association to dilutethe impact of the Bakeshop Act. As he told the New York Times, "The truth . . . is that I have never been in sympathy with the radicals in the labor movement."
Weissman, who had not passed the bar, asked attorney Frank Harvey Field to join him. The key argument of the new team was that the Bakeshop law violated adoctrine called "liberty of contract"--meaning the right to operate a business, or contract one's labor, so long as this did not interfere with the equalrights of others. State courts embraced this doctrine during the late nineteenth century. (One example was an 1886 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision tooverrule a law that required coal miners to be paid in cash, not goods.)
However, critics argued that the state already placed restrictions on contracts, such as prohibiting the practice of medicine without a license. They claimed the "liberty of contract" doctrine protected the exploitation of workers,who were the weaker parties in labor contracts.
At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court had only once used "liberty of contract"to overrule a state law (in Allgeyer v. Louisiana [1897]). Mostly, theCourt preferred to leave state laws intact. So Field and Weismann faced an uphill battle when they argued that the Bakeshop Act had violated the libertyof contract of the workers and employers of New York State. Baking was not adangerous profession, they said, and the Bakeshop Act, as it concerned hours,was never intended to protect the health of employees. Instead it was a prohibitive labor law, an illegitimate use of the police power of the state, because it deprived bakers of their due process rights.
Due Process and Daniel Webster
In 1819, Daniel Webster had argued that in nullifying the charter of a private college, New Hampshire had performed a semi-judicial act that had, in effect, deprived Dartmouth of its "substantive due process" rights under the FifthAmendment of the Constitution.
The Weissman-Field team--elaborating on this theory that a state may not invade the rights of persons or property--posed a series of questions to test whether legislators truly had the health and safety of the public in mind when they passed a law:
Does a danger exist? Is it of sufficient magnitude? Does it concern the public? Does the proposed measure tend to remove it?Is the restraint or requirement in proportion to the danger? Is it possibleto secure the object sought without impairing essential rights and principles? Does the choice of a particular measure show that some other interest thansafety or health was the actual motive of legislation?
Julius M. Mayer, the newly appointed attorney general, made a surprisingly brief 18-page response. He said baking required heavy lifting and carrying; because of the flour dust and germs in the air, lung diseases sickened workers.Tuberculosis killed many of them. Therefore, the state could regulate work hours for the public good.
A Surprise Verdict
By a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court preferred elevated liberty of contract over the rights of employees to a safe workplace and reasonable hours. Speaking forthe Court, Justice Rufus Peckham said:
There is no reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of person or right of free contract, bydetermining the hours of labor, in the occupation of a baker . . . A law like the one before us involves neither the safety, the morals, nor the welfareof the public . . .
Justice Harlan, six-feet-two-inches tall--who, according to his wife, "walkedas if the whole world belonged to him"--joined White and Day in dissenting.Harlan quoted professors and writers who felt baking was a hard occupation, and pointed out that Congress and nearly all the states had passed laws concerning "particular occupations involving the physical strength and safety of workmen . . . Many, if not most, of those enactments fix eight hours as the proper basis of a day's labor." He was referring to hazardous jobs, such as mining.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, on the Court less than two years, also dissented in aseparate opinion that people quoted for years to come. He put his finger on the unspoken assumption of the majority:
The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well-known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not.
Effect on Women
For years the economic rights upheld in Lochner v. New York were usedto invalidate laws regulating the hours, wages, and work conditions of women(for instance, Adkins v. Children's Hospital in 1923). During the 1930s, the Court relied on Lochner to frustrate the New Deal legislation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making it a symbol of unfairness. In 1940,the Court formally disavowed the Lochner philosophy in United States v. Darby. By this time, most states had already enacted laws protecting womenin the workplace. In the climate of reform, few imagined the disastrous effects that the laws-despite their immediate relief--would have on women's employment opportunities.
Protective legislation for women may have harmed as well as helped female workers. Because women were "protected" from performing equally with men in lifting, working night shifts, selling spirits, and working while pregnant--to give a few examples--they suffered disastrous economic discrimination. Since they could not compete equally with men, they did not earn equal wages, obtainthe same jobs, win promotions, or receive equal benefits. In 1964, the CivilRights Act, Title VII, brought the promise of relief. Seven years later, theSupreme Court for the first time sued a company under the act for sex-discrimination. The case was United States v. Libbey-Owens-Ford, and it marked an historic turning point in the equal treatment of women in the workplace.
Related Cases
- Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897).
- Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917).
- Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923).
- West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).
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