Lochner v. New York in a Nutshell
The U.S. Supreme Court found that New York’s state law limiting the number of hours workers could work per week in bakeries was unconstitutional. According to the majority, the statute did not have a direct relation to employee health to justify the state’s use of its police power. Instead, the law violated the employer and employees’ freedom to contract. Therefore, the law failed the rational basis test.
Background
The Facts
In 1895, the State of New York passed the Bakeshop Act to improve labor standards, sanitation, and food safety in bakeries in the state. One of the key provisions (the one in question in this case) limited the number of hours workers could work to 10 hours per day or 60 hours a week. Prior to this law, workers were working on average 12-hour days and 7 days a week in very small spaces, inevitably increasing the chances of injury or sickness.
In 1905 a grand jury indicted New York bakery owner John Lochner for violations of the hour limitation provision of the act. Lochner appealed his case to the Supreme Court.
Why is Lochner v. New York important?
This case marks the beginning of an era in Supreme Court jurisprudence that, appropriately, came to be known as the Lochner Era. This era, which began around the time of its namesake case and lasted until 1937, was marked by the Court’s broad interpretation of due process to protect economic freedoms. You’ll hear the terms “freedom of contract” and “laissez-faire” used a lot during this 30ish-year period.
This decision is particularly important in labor law because substantive due process is the broader theory in which employment at will is rooted. It reflects not only U.S. law and policy at the time, but also how freedom and work in our culture are strongly associated both with each other and also with our identity as Americans. After all, even still, the hegemonic view of “work” in our culture attaches a lot of positive symbols related to freedom and industriousness. Naturally then, regulation is often seen as negative or paternalistic.
However, also during this time, the circumstances surrounding work or labor in the United States were changing rapidly. As company sizes increased and work standards became worse, work became more dehumanizing and dangerous. It is under these circumstances that New York passed the Bakery Act.
With all of this in mind, remember these three things while reading this case:
- In this case, the Court is determining what prevails: the state’s police powers, or liberty. Here, liberty prevails.
- If you are currently in labor law, you will likely cover a few other Lochner Era cases to set the stage for all of the New Deal era legislation and the rise of unions, which is a complete 180 from the Lochner Era.
- Pay close attention to Justice Harlan’s dissent, as it lays the groundwork for New Deal legislation.
Procedural History of Lochner v. New York
Lochner refused to plead at the trial level, so the court found him guilty. He then appealed his case twice, to New York’s Appellate Division and to the Court of Appeals. Both courts sided with the state.
Issue
Whether New York properly exercised its police powers when it passed the Bakeshop Act, or if the Act violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Key Quote:
“It is a question of which two power or rights shall prevail — the power of the State to legislate or the right of the individual to liberty of person and freedom of contract.”
198 U.S. at 57.
Rule
The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects one’s freedom to contract.
Held
The Bakeshop Act is unconstitutional because it interferes with one’s freedom to contract and therefore violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Standard
An act must have a direct relation to public welfare, as a means to an end, that end being appropriate and legitimate, before that act can be held to be valid. (In this case, that end is public health.)
Key Quote
“An act must have a direct relation, as a means to an end, and the end itself must be appropriate and legitimate before an act can be held to be valid which interferes with the general right of an individual to be free in his person and in his power to contract in relation to his own labor.”
198 U.S. at 57-58.
Reasoning
Key Quote
“Police powers, ‘broadly stated and without, at present, any attempt at a more specific limitation, relate to the safety, health, morals and general welfare of the public.”
198 U.S. at 53.
The Bakers Act, viewed purely as a labor law, involves neither safety, morals nor the welfare of the public, and the interest of the public is not affected by the act. That is, baking is not particularly unhealthy; all work can be considered unhealthy to a degree. Thus, the limitation of the hours of labor has no direct relation to the health of the employee, and this law cannot justifiably be considered a health law.
Further, bakers as a class are not a protected class; they are able to assert their rights and care for themselves without the protecting arm of the state.
Dissents
J. Harlan, dissenting, joined by J. White and J. Day
Multiple Supreme Court cases acknowledge that (1) police power “extends at least to the protection of the lives, the health and the safety of the public against the injurious exercise by any citizen of his own rights“ and (2) the right of contract is “itself subject to certain limitations which the State may lawfully impose in the exercise of [those] police powers.” 198 U.S. at 65-66.
With precedent in mind, the question should be whether the legislation enacted for public welfare has (or does not have) a real substantial relation to public health, public morals or public safety. Further, when the validity of the legislation is in question, the burden of proof is on the party alleging unconstitutionality.
Key Quote
“[T]he power of the courts to review legislative action in respect of a matter affecting the general welfare exists only ‘when that which the legislature has done comes within the rule that if a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is, beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law’…If there be doubt as to the validity of the statute, that doubt must therefore be resolved in favor of its validity, and the courts must keep their hands off, leaving the legislature to meet the responsibility for unwise legislation.”
198 U.S. at 68.
In this case, the Baker’s Act was intended to “protect the physical wellbeing of those who work in bakery and confectionery establishments…where the air constantly breathed by workmen is not as pure and healthful as that to be found in some other establishments or out of doors.” Here, there is a real or substantial relation between the means employed by the state and the end sought to be accomplished by its legislation.
Holmes, Dissenting (This one is famous)
Holmes argued that it is not the Court’s job base its decisions on economic theories.
Key Quote
“This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain.…[M]y agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law…. But a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and even shocking ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.”
198 U.S. 75-76.
