Supreme Court of the
JOSEPH LOCHNER, Plff.
in Err.,
v.
PEOPLE OF THE STATE
OF
No. 292.
Argued February 23,
24, 1905.
Decided April 17,
1905.
Statement by Mr.
Justice Peckham:
*45 [Joseph Lochner was convicted]
of a misdemeanor on an indictment under a statute of that state, known, by its
short title, as the labor *46 law. The section of the statute under
which the indictment was found is § 110.
Ԥ 110, Hours
of labor in bakeries and confectionery establishments.--No employee shall
be required or permitted to work in a biscuit, bread, or cake bakery or
confectionery establishment more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than
ten hours in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day
on the last day of the week; nor more hours in any one week than will make an
average of ten hours per day for the number of days during such week in which
such employee shall work.
Ԥ 111. Drainage
and plumbing of buildings and rooms occupied by bakeries.--All buildings or
rooms occupied as biscuit, bread, pie, or cake bakeries, shall be drained and
plumbed in a manner conducive to the proper and healthful sanitary condition
thereof, and shall be constructed with air shafts, windows, or ventilating
pipes, sufficient to insure ventilation. The factory inspector may direct the
proper drainage, plumbing, and ventilation of such rooms or buildings. No
cellar or basement, not now used for a bakery, shall hereafter be so occupied
or used, unless the proprietor shall comply with the sanitary provisions of
this article.
Ԥ 112. Requirements
as to rooms, furniture, utensils, and manufactured products.--Every room
used for the manufacture of flour or meal food products shall be at least 8
feet in height and shall have, if deemed necessary by the factory inspector, an
impermeable floor constructed of cement, or of tiles laid in cement, or an
additional flooring of wood properly saturated with linseed oil. The side walls
of such rooms shall be plastered or wainscoted. The factory inspector may require
the side walls and ceiling to be whitewashed at least once in three months. He
may also require the wood work of such walls to be painted. The furniture and
utensils shall be so arranged as to be readily cleansed and not prevent the
proper cleaning of any part of the room. The manufactured flour or meal food
products shall be kept in dry and airy rooms, so arranged that the floors,
shelves, and all other facilities for storing the same can be properly cleaned.
No domestic animals, except cats, shall be allowed to remain in a room used as
a biscuit, bread, pie, or cake bakery, or any room in such bakery where flour
or meal products are stored.
Ԥ 113. Wash
rooms and closets; sleeping places.--Every such bakery shall be provided
with a proper wash room and water-closet, or water-closets, apart from the bake
room, or rooms where the manufacture of such food product is conducted, and no
water-closet, earth closet, privy, or ashpit shall be within, or connected
directly with, the bake room of any bakery, hotel, or public restaurant.
‘No person
shall sleep in a room occupied as a bake room. Sleeping places for the persons
employed in the bakery shall be separate from the rooms where flour or meal
food products are manufactured or stored. If the sleeping places are on the
same floor where such products are manufactured, stored, or sold, the factory
inspector may inspect and order them put in a proper sanitary condition.
Ԥ 114. Inspection
of bakeries.--The factory inspector shall cause all bakeries to be inspected.
If it be found upon such inspection that the bakeries so inspected are
constructed and conducted in compliance with the provisions of this chapter,
the factory inspector shall issue a certificate to the person owning or
conducting such bakeries.
Ԥ 115. Notice
requiring alterations.--If, in the opinion of the factory inspector,
alterations are required in or upon premises occupied and used as bakeries, in
order to comply with the provisions of this article, a written notice shall be
served by him upon the owner, agent, or lessee of such premises, either
personally or by mail, requiring such alterations to be made within sixty days
after such service, and such alterations shall be made accordingly.’ [N. Y.
Laws 1897, chap 415.
The indictment averred that the
defendant ‘wrongfully and unlawfully required and permitted an employee working
for him in his biscuit, bread, and cake bakery and confectionery establishment,
at the city of Utica, in this county, to work more than sixty hours in one
week,’ after having been theretofore convicted of a violation of the name act;
and therefore, as averred, he committed the crime of misdemeanor, second
offense.
Lochner
having refused to plead further, a plea of not guilty was entered by order of
the court and the trial commenced, and he was convicted of misdemeanor, second
offense, as indicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of $50, and to stand
committed until paid, not to exceed fifty days in the Oneida county jail.
A
certificate of reasonable doubt was granted by the county judge of
*52 Mr. Justice Peckham delivered the opinion of the
court
The
indictment, it will be seen, charges that the plaintiff in error violated the
110th section of article 8, chapter 415, of the Laws of 1897, known
as the labor law of the state of New York, in that he wrongfully and unlawfully
required and permitted an employee working for him to work more than sixty
hours in one week. There is nothing in any of the opinions delivered in this
case, either in the supreme court or the court of appeals of the state, which
construes **541 the section, in using the word ‘required,’ as referring
to any physical force being used to obtain the labor of an employee. It is
assumed that the word means nothing more than the requirement arising from
voluntary contract for such labor in excess of the number of hours specified in
the statute. There is no pretense in any of the opinions that the statute was
intended to meet a case of involuntary labor in any form. All the opinions
assume that there is no real distinction, so far as this question is concerned,
between the words ‘required’ and ‘permitted.’ The mandate of the statute, that
‘no employee shall be required or permitted to work,’ is the substantial
equivalent of an enactment that ‘no employee shall contract or agree to work,’ more than ten hours per day; and, as there is no
provision for special emergencies, the statute is mandatory in all cases. It is
not an act merely fixing the number of hours which shall constitute a legal
day’s work, but an absolute prohibition upon the employer permitting, under any
circumstances, more than ten hours’ work to be done in his establishment. The
employee may desire to earn the extra money which would arise from his working
more than the prescribed *53 time, but this statute forbids the employer
from permitting the employee to earn it.
The
statute necessarily interferes with the right of contract between the employer
and employees, concerning the number of hours in which the latter may labor in
the bakery of the employer. The general right to make a contract in relation to
his business is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the 14th
Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Under that provision no state can
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
The right to purchase or to sell labor is part of the liberty protected by this
amendment, unless there are circumstances which exclude the right. There are,
however, certain powers, existing in the sovereignty of each state in the
Union, somewhat vaguely termed police powers, the exact description and
limitation of which have not been attempted by the courts. Those 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. Both property and liberty
are held on such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the governing power
of the state in the exercise of those powers, and with such conditions the 14th
Amendment was not designed to interfere.
The
state, therefore, has power to prevent the individual from making certain kinds
of contracts, and in regard to them the Federal Constitution offers no
protection. If the contract be one which the state, in the legitimate exercise
of its police power, has the right to prohibit, it is not prevented from
prohibiting it by the 14th Amendment. Contracts in violation of a
statute, either of the Federal or state government, or a contract to let one’s
property for immoral purposes, or to do any other unlawful act, could obtain no
protection from the Federal Constitution, as coming under the liberty of *54
person or of free contract. Therefore, when the state, by its legislature, in
the assumed exercise of its police powers, has passed an act which seriously
limits the **542 right to labor or the right of contract in regard to
their means of livelihood between persons who are sui juris [of full age
and mental competence] (both employer and
employee), it becomes of great importance to determine which shall
prevail,--the right of the individual to labor for such time as he may choose,
or the right of the state to prevent the individual from laboring, or from
entering into any contract to labor, beyond a certain time prescribed by the
state.
This
court has recognized the existence and upheld the exercise of the police powers
of the states in many cases which might fairly be considered as border ones,
and it has, in the course of its determination of questions regarding the
asserted invalidity of such statutes, on the ground of their violation of the
rights secured by the Federal Constitution, been guided by rules of a very
liberal nature, the application of which has resulted, in numerous instances,
in upholding the validity of state statutes thus assailed.
Among the later cases where the state law has been upheld by this court is that of Holden v. Hardy. A provision in the act of the legislature of Utah was there under consideration, the act limiting the employment of workmen in all underground mines or workings, to eight hours per day, ‘except in cases of emergency, where life or property is in imminent danger.’ It also limited the hours of labor in smelting and other institutions for the reduction or refining of ores or metals to eight hours per day, except in like cases of emergency. The act was held to be a valid exercise of the police powers of the state. A review of many of the cases on the subject, decided by this and other courts, is given in the opinion. It was held that the kind of employment, mining, smelting, etc., and the character of the employees in such kinds of labor, were such as to make it reasonable and proper for the state to interfere to prevent the employees from being constrained by the rules laid down by the proprietors in regard to labor. The following citation *55 from the observations of the supreme court of Utah in that case was made by the judge writing the opinion of this court, and approved: ‘The law in question is confined to the protection of that class of people engaged in labor in underground mines, and in smelters and other works wherein ores are reduced and refined. This law applies only to the classes subjected by their employment to the peculiar conditions and effects attending underground mining and work in smelters, and other works for the reduction and refining of ores. Therefore it is not necessary to discuss or decide whether the legislature can fix the hours of labor in other employments.’
It
will be observed that, even with regard to that class of labor, the
There
is nothing in Holden v. Hardy which covers the case now before
us. Nor does Atkin v.
The
latest case decided by this court, involving the police power, is that of Jacobson
v.
Petit v. Minnesota, was upheld as a proper exercise of the police
power relating to the observance of Sunday, and the case held that the
legislature had the right to declare that, as matter of law, keeping barber
shops open on Sunday was not a work of necessity or charity.
It
must, of course, be conceded that there is a limit to the valid exercise of the
police power by the state. There is no dispute concerning this general
proposition. Otherwise the 14th Amendment would have no efficacy and
the legislatures of the states would **543 have unbounded power, and it
would be enough to say that any piece of legislation was enacted to conserve
the morals, the health, or the safety of the people; such legislation would be
valid, no matter how absolutely without foundation the claim might be. The
claim of the police power would be a mere pretext,--become another and delusive
name for the supreme sovereignty of the state to be exercised free from
constitutional restraint. This is not contended for. In every case that comes
before this court, therefore, where legislation of this character is concerned,
and where the protection of the Federal Constitution is sought, the question
necessarily arises: Is this a fair, reasonable, and appropriate exercise of the
police power of the state, or is it an unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary
interference with the right of the individual to his personal liberty, or to
enter into those contracts in relation to labor which may seem to him
appropriate or necessary for the support of himself and his family? Of course the liberty of contract relating to labor
includes both parties to it. The one has as much right to purchase as the other
to sell labor.
This
is not a question of substituting the judgment of the *57 court for that
of the legislature. If the act be within the power of the state it is valid,
although the judgment of the court might be totally opposed to the enactment of
such a law. But the question would still remain: Is it within the police power
of the state? And that question must be answered by the court.
The
question whether this act is valid as a labor law, pure and simple, may be
dismissed in a few words. There is no reasonable ground for interfering with
the liberty of person or the right of free contract, by determining the hours
of labor, in the occupation of a baker. There is no contention that bakers as a
class are not equal in intelligence and capacity to men in other trades or
manual occupations, or that they are not able to assert their rights and care
for themselves without the protecting arm of the state, interfering with their
independence of judgment and of action. They are in no sense wards of the
state. Viewed in the light of a purely labor law, with no reference whatever to
the question of health, we think that a law like the one before us involves neither
the safety, the morals, nor the welfare, of the public, and that the interest
of the public is not in the slightest degree affected by such an act. The law
must be upheld, if at all, as a law pertaining to the health of the individual
engaged in the occupation of a baker. It does not affect any other portion of the public than those who are
engaged in that occupation. Clean and wholesome bread does not depend upon
whether the baker works but ten hours per day or only sixty hours a week. The
limitation of the hours of labor does not come within the police power on that
ground.
It is
a question of which of two powers 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. The mere assertion that the subject relates, though but in
a remote degree, to the public health, does not necessarily render the
enactment valid. The act must have a more 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 *58 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.
This
case has caused much diversity of opinion in the state courts. In the supreme
court two of the five judges composing the court dissented from the judgment
affirming the validity of the act. In the court of appeals three of the seven
judges also dissented from the judgment upholding the statute. Although found
in what is called a labor law of the state, the court of appeals has upheld the
act as one relating to the public health,--in other words, as a health law. One
of the judges of the court of appeals, in upholding the law, stated that, in
his opinion, the regulation in question could not be sustained unless they were able to say, from common
knowledge, that working in a bakery and candy factory was an unhealthy
employment. The judge held that, while the evidence was not uniform, it still
led him to the conclusion that the occupation of a baker or confectioner was
unhealthy and tended to result in diseases of the respiratory organs. Three of
the judges dissented from that view, and they thought the occupation of a baker
was not to such an extent unhealthy as to warrant the interference of the
legislature with the liberty of the individual.
We
think the limit of the police power has been reached and passed in this case.
There is, in our judgment, no reasonable foundation for holding this to be
necessary or appropriate as a health law to safeguard the public health, or the
health of the individuals who are following the trade of a baker. If this
statute be valid, and if, therefore, a proper case is made out in which to deny
the right of an individual, sui juris [of legal age and mental competence], as employer or employee,
to make contracts for the labor of the latter under the protection of the
provisions of the Federal Constitution, there would seem **544 to be no
length to which legislation of this nature might not go. The case differs
widely, as we have already stated, from the expressions of this court in regard
to laws of this nature, as stated in Holden v. Hardy and Jacobson
v.
*59 We think that there can be no
fair doubt that the trade of a baker, in and of itself, is not an unhealthy one
to that degree which would authorize the legislature to interfere with the
right to labor, and with the right of free contract on the part of the
individual, either as employer or employee In looking through statistics
regarding all trades and occupations, it may be true that the trade of a baker
does not appear to be as healthy as some other trades, and is also vastly more
healthy than still others. To the common understanding the trade of a baker has
never been regarded as an unhealthy one.
Very
likely physicians would not recommend the exercise of that or of any other
trade as a remedy for ill health. Some occupations are more healthy than
others, but we think there are none which might not come under the power of the
legislature to supervise and control the hours of working therein, if the mere
fact that the occupation is not absolutely and perfectly healthy is to confer
that right upon the legislative department of the government. It might be
safely affirmed that almost all occupations more or less affect the health.
There must be more than the mere fact of the possible existence of some small
amount of unhealthiness to warrant legislative interference with liberty. It is
unfortunately true that labor, even in any department, may possibly carry with
it the seeds of unhealthiness.
But
are we all, on that account, at the mercy of legislative majorities? A printer,
a tinsmith, a locksmith, a carpenter, a cabinetmaker, a dry goods clerk, a
bank’s, a lawyer’s, or a physician’s clerk,
or a clerk in almost any kind of business, would all come under the power of
the legislature, on this assumption. No trade, no occupation, no mode of
earning one’s living, could escape this all-pervading power, and the acts of
the legislature in limiting the hours of labor in all employments would be
valid, although such limitation might seriously cripple the ability of the
laborer to support himself and his family. In our large cities there are many
buildings into which the sun penetrates for but a short time in each day, and
these buildings are occupied by people carrying on the *60 business of
bankers, brokers, lawyers, real estate, and many other kinds of business, aided
by many clerks, messengers, and other employees.
Upon
the assumption of the validity of this act under review, it is not possible to
say that an act, prohibiting lawyers’ or bank clerks, or others, from
contracting to labor for their employers more than eight hours a day would be
invalid. It might be said that it is unhealthy to work more than that number of
hours in an apartment lighted by artificial light during the working hours of
the day; that the occupation of the bank clerk, the lawyer’s clerk, the real estate
clerk, or the broker’s clerk, in such offices is therefore unhealthy, and the
legislature, in its paternal wisdom, must, therefore, have the right to
legislate on the subject of, and to limit, the hours for such labor; and, if it
exercises that power, and its validity be questioned, it is sufficient to say, it
has reference to the public health; it has reference to the health of the employees condemned to labor day after day in
buildings where the sun never shines; it is a health law, and therefore it is
valid, and cannot be questioned by the courts.
It is
also urged, pursuing the same line of argument, that it is to the interest of
the state that its population should be strong and robust, and therefore any
legislation which may be said to tend to make people healthy must be valid as
health laws, enacted under the police power. If this be a valid argument and a
justification for this kind of legislation, it follows that the protection of
the Federal Constitution from undue interference with liberty of person and
freedom of contract is visionary, wherever the law is sought to be justified as
a valid exercise of the police power.
Scarcely
any law but might find shelter under such assumptions, and conduct, properly so
called, as well as contract, would come under the restrictive sway of the
legislature. Not only the hours of employees, but the hours of employers, could
be regulated, and doctors, lawyers, scientists, all professional men, as well
as athletes and artisans, could be forbidden to fatigue their brains and bodies
by prolonged hours of exercise, lest the fighting strength *61 of the
state be impaired. We mention these extreme cases because the contention is
extreme. We do not believe in the soundness of the views which uphold this law.
On the
contrary, we think that such a law as this, although passed in the assumed
exercise of the police power, and as relating to the public health, or the
health of the employees named, is not within
that power, and is invalid. The act is not, within any fair meaning of the
term, a health law, but is an illegal interference with the rights of
individuals, both employers and employees, to make contracts regarding labor
upon such terms as they may think best, or which they may agree **545
upon with the other parties to such contracts.
Statutes
of the nature of that under review, limiting the hours in which grown and
intelligent men may labor to earn their living, are mere meddlesome
interferences with the rights of the individual, and they are not saved from
condemnation by the claim that they are passed in the exercise of the police
power and upon the subject of the health of the individual whose rights are
interfered with, unless there be some fair ground, reasonable in and of itself,
to say that there is material danger to the public health, or to the health of
the employees, if the hours of labor are not curtailed.
If
this be not clearly the case, the individuals whose rights are thus made the
subject of legislative interference are under the protection of the Federal
Constitution regarding their liberty of contract as well as of person; and the
legislature of the state has no power to limit their right as proposed in this
statute. All that it could properly do has been done by it with regard to the
conduct of bakeries, as provided for in the other sections of the act, above
set forth. These several sections provide for the inspection of the premises
where the bakery is carried on, with regard to furnishing proper wash rooms and
water closets, apart from the bake room,
also with regard to providing proper drainage, plumbing, and painting; the
sections, in addition, provide for the height of the ceiling, the cementing or
tiling of floors, where necessary in the opinion of the factory inspector, and
for other things of *62 that nature; alterations are also provided for,
and are to be made where necessary in the opinion of the inspector, in order to
comply with the provisions of the statute.
These
various sections may be wise and valid regulations, and they certainly go to
the full extent of providing for the cleanliness and the healthiness, so far as
possible, of the quarters in which bakeries are to be conducted. Adding to all
these requirements a prohibition to enter into any contract of labor in a
bakery for more than a certain number of hours a week is, in our judgment, so wholly
beside the matter of a proper, reasonable, and fair provision as to run counter
to that liberty of person and of free contract provided for in the Federal
Constitution.
It was
further urged on the argument that restricting the hours of labor in the case
of bakers was valid because it tended to cleanliness on the part of the
workers, as a man was more apt to be cleanly when not overworked, and if
cleanly then his ‘output’ was also more likely to be so. What has already been
said applies with equal force to this contention. We do not admit the reasoning
to be sufficient to justify the claimed right of such interference. The state
in that case would assume the position of a supervisor, or pater familias, over every act of the individual,
and its right of governmental interference with his hours of labor, his hours
of exercise, the character thereof, and the extent to which it shall be carried
would be recognized and upheld.
In our
judgment it is not possible in fact to discover the connection between the number
of hours a baker may work in the bakery and the healthful quality of the bread
made by the workman. The connection, if any exist, is too shadowy and thin to
build any argument for the interference of the legislature. If the man works
ten hours a day it is all right, but if ten and a half or eleven his health is
in danger and his bread may be unhealthy, and, therefore, he shall not be
permitted to do it. This, we think, is unreasonable and entirely arbitrary.
When assertions such as we have adverted to become necessary in order to give,
if possible, a plausible foundation for the contention that the law is a
‘health law,’ *63 it gives rise to at least a suspicion that there was
some other motive dominating the legislature than the purpose to subserve the
public health or welfare.
This
interference on the part of the legislatures of the several states with the
ordinary trades and occupations of the people seems to be on the increase. In
the supreme court of New York, in the case of People v. Beattie,
appellate division, first department, decided in 1904, a statute regulating the
trade of horseshoeing, and requiring the person practicing such trade to be
examined, and to obtain a certificate from a board
of examiners and file the same with the clerk of the county wherein the person
proposes to practice such trade, was held invalid, as an arbitrary interference
with personal liberty and private property without due process of law. The
attempt was made, unsuccessfully, to justify it as a health law….
It is
impossible for us to shut our eyes to the fact that many of the laws of this
character, while passed under what is claimed to be the police power for the
purpose of protecting the public health or welfare, are, in reality, passed
from other motives. We are justified in saying so when, from the character of
the law and the subject upon which it legislates, it is apparent that the
public health or welfare bears but the most remote relation to the law. The
purpose of a statute must be determined from the natural and legal effect of
the language employed; and whether it is or is not repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States must be determined from the natural effect of
such statutes when put into operation, and not from their proclaimed purpose.
The court looks beyond the mere letter of the law in such cases.
It is
manifest to us that the limitation of the hours of labor as provided for in
this section of the statute under which the indictment was found, and the
plaintiff in error convicted, has no such direct relation to, and no such
substantial effect upon, the health of the employee, as to justify us in regarding the section as really a health law.
It seems to us that the real object and purpose were simply to regulate the
hours of labor between the master and his [adult] employees, in a private
business, not dangerous in any degree to morals, or in any real and substantial
degree to the health of the employees. Under such circumstances the freedom of
master and employee to contract with each other in relation to their
employment, and in defining the same, cannot be prohibited or interfered with,
without violating the Federal Constitution.
The
judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York, as well as that of the Supreme
Court and of the County Court of Oneida County, must be reversed and the case
remanded to *65 the County Court for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Holmes dissenting:
*75 This case is decided upon an
economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain. If it
were a question whether I agreed with that theory, I should desire to study it
further and long before making up my mind. But I do not conceive that to be my duty, because I
strongly believe that my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the
right of a majority to embody their opinions in law.
It is
settled by various decisions of this court that state constitutions and state
laws may regulate life in many ways which we as legislators might think as
injudicious, or if you like as tyrannical, as this, and which, equally with
this, interfere with the liberty to contract. Sunday laws and usury laws are
ancient examples. A more modern one is the prohibition of lotteries. 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.
The 14th
Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics. The other day we
sustained the Massachusetts vaccination law.
Some
of these laws embody convictions or prejudices which judges are **547
likely to share. Some may not. 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. *76 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.
General
propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a
judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise. But I
think that the proposition just stated, if it is accepted, will carry us far
toward the end. Every opinion tends to become a law. I think that the word
‘liberty,’ in the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it is held to
prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a
rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would
infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions
of our people and our law.
It
does not need research to show that no such sweeping condemnation can be passed
upon the statute before us. A reasonable man might think it a proper measure on the score of
health. Men whom I certainly could not pronounce unreasonable would uphold it
as a first installment of a general regulation of the hours of work. Whether in
the latter aspect it would be open to the charge of inequality I think it
unnecessary to discuss.
Mr. Justice Harlan, joined by Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Day, dissenting:
I take
it to be firmly established that what is called the liberty of contract may,
within certain limits, be subjected to regulations designed and calculated to
promote the general welfare, or to guard the public health, the public morals,
or the public safety. ‘The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States
to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in
each person to be at all times and in all circumstances wholly freed from
restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily
subject for the common good.’
*68 Granting, then, that there is a
liberty of contract which cannot be violated even under the sanction of direct
legislative enactment, but assuming, as according to settled law we may assume,
that such liberty of contract is subject to
such regulations as the state may reasonably prescribe for the common good and
the well-being of society, what are the conditions under which the judiciary
may declare such regulations to be in excess of legislative authority and void?
Upon
this point there is no room for dispute; for the rule is universal that a
legislative enactment, Federal or state, is never to be disregarded or held
invalid unless it be, beyond question, plainly and palpably in excess of
legislative power. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, we said that the
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. If the end which the legislature seeks to accomplish be
one to which its power extends, and if the means employed to that end, although
not the wisest or best, are yet not plainly and palpably unauthorized by law,
then the court cannot interfere. In other words, when the validity of a statute
is questioned, the burden of proof, so to speak, is upon those who assert it to
be unconstitutional.
Let
these principles be applied to the present case. By the statute in question it **549
is provided that
no employee
shall be required, or permitted, to work in a biscuit, bread, or cake *69
bakery, or confectionery establishment, more than sixty hours in any one week,
or more than ten hours in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a
shorter work day on the last day of the week; nor more hours in any one week
than will make an average of ten hours per day for the number of days during
such week in which such employee shall work.
It is
plain that this statute was enacted in order to protect the physical well-being
of those who work in bakery and confectionery establishments. It may be that
the statute had its origin, in part, in the belief that employers and employees
in such establishments were not upon an equal footing, and that the necessities
of the latter often compelled them to submit to such exactions as unduly taxed their strength. Be this as it
may, the statute must be taken as expressing the belief of the people of New
York that, as a general rule, and in the case of the average man, labor in
excess of sixty hours during a week in such establishments may endanger the
health of those who thus labor.
Whether
or not this be wise legislation it is not the province of the court to inquire.
Under our systems of government the courts are not concerned with the wisdom or
policy of legislation. So that, in determining the question of power to
interfere with liberty of contract, the court may inquire whether the means
devised by the state are germane to an end which may be lawfully accomplished
and have a real or substantial relation to the protection of health, as
involved in the daily work of the persons, male and female, engaged in bakery
and confectionery establishments.
But
when this inquiry is entered upon I find it impossible, in view of common
experience, to say that there is here no real or substantial relation between
the means employed by the state and the end sought to be accomplished by its
legislation. Nor can I say that the statute has no appropriate or direct
connection with that protection to health which each state owes to her
citizens; or that it is not promotive of the health of the employees in
question; *70 or that the regulation prescribed by the state is utterly
unreasonable and extravagant or wholly arbitrary
Still
less can I say that the statute is, beyond question, a plain, palpable invasion
of rights secured by the fundamental law. Therefore I submit that this court
will transcend its functions if it assumes to annul the statute of
Professor
Hirt in his treatise on the ‘Diseases of the Workers’ has said:
The labor
of the bakers is among the hardest and most laborious imaginable, because it
has to be performed under conditions injurious to the health of those engaged
in it. It is hard, very hard, work, not only because it requires a great deal
of physical exertion in an overheated workshop and during unreasonably long
hours, but more so because of the erratic demands of the public, compelling the
baker to perform the greater part of his work at night, thus depriving him of an opportunity to enjoy
the necessary rest and sleep,--a fact which is highly injurious to his health.
Another
writer says:
‘The
constant inhaling of flour dust causes inflammation of the lungs and of the
bronchial tubes. The eyes also suffer through this dust, which is responsible for
the many cases of running eyes among the bakers. The long hours of toil to
which all bakers are subjected produce rheumatism, cramps, and swollen legs.
The intense heat in the workshops induces the workers to resort to cooling
drinks, which, together with their habit of exposing the greater part of their
bodies to the change in the atmosphere, is another source of a number of
diseases of various organs. Nearly all bakers are palefaced and of more
delicate health than the workers of other crafts, which is chiefly due to their
hard work and their irregular and unnatural mode of living, whereby the power
of resistance against disease is *71 greatly diminished. The average age
of a baker is below that of other workmen; they seldom live over their fiftieth
year, most of them dying between the ages of forty and fifty. During periods of
epidemic diseases the bakers are generally the first to succumb to the disease,
and the number swept away during such periods far exceeds the number of other
crafts in comparison to the men employed in the respective industries. When, in
1720, the plague visited the city of
In the
Eighteenth Annual Report by the New York Bureau of Statistics of Labor it is
stated that among the occupations involving exposure to conditions that
interfere with nutrition is that of a baker. In that Report it is also stated
that, ‘from a social point of view, production will be increased by any change
in industrial organization which diminishes the number of idlers, paupers, and
criminals. Shorter hours of work, by allowing higher standards of comfort and
purer family life, promise to enhance the industrial efficiency of the
wage-working class,--improved health, longer life, more content and greater
intelligence and inventiveness.’
Statistics
show that the average daily working time among workingmen in different
countries is, in Australia, eight hours; in Great Britain, nine; in the United
States, nine and three-quarters; in Denmark, nine and three- quarters; in
Norway, ten; Sweden, France, and Switzerland, ten and one-half; Germany, ten
and one-quarter; Belgium, Italy, and Austria, eleven; and in Russia, twelve
hours.
We
judicially know that the question of the number of hours during which a workman
should continuously labor has been, for a long period, and is yet, a subject of
serious consideration among civilized peoples, and by those having special knowledge of the laws of health.
Suppose the statute prohibited labor in bakery and confectionery establishments
in excess of eighteen hours each day.
No
one, I take it, could dispute the power of the state to enact such a statute.
But the statute *72 before us does not embrace extreme or exceptional
cases. It may be said to occupy a middle ground in respect of the hours of
labor. What is the true ground for the state to take between legitimate
protection, by legislation, of the public health and liberty of contract is not
a question easily solved, nor one in respect of which there is or can be
absolute certainty. There are very few, if any, questions in political economy
about which entire certainty may be predicated. One writer on relation of the
state to labor has well said: “The manner, occasion, and degree in which the
state may interfere with the industrial freedom of its citizens is one of the
most debatable and difficult questions of social science.”
We
also judicially know that the number of hours that should constitute a day’s
labor in particular occupations involving the physical strength and safety of
workmen has been the subject of enactments by Congress and by nearly all of the
states. Many, if not most, of those enactments fix eight hours as the proper
basis of a day’s labor.
I do
not stop to consider whether any particular view of this economic question presents the sounder theory. What the
precise facts are it may be difficult to say. It is enough for the
determination of this case, and it is enough for this court to know, that the
question is one about which there is room for debate and for an honest
difference of opinion. There are many reasons of a weighty, substantial
character, based upon the experience of mankind, in support of the theory that,
all things considered, more than ten hours’ steady work each day, from week to
week, in a bakery or confectionery establishment, may endanger the health and
shorten the lives of the workmen, thereby diminishing their physical and mental
capacity to serve the state and to provide for those dependent upon them.
If
such reasons exist that ought to be the end of this case, for the state is not
amenable to the judiciary, in respect of its legislative enactments, unless
such enactments are plainly, palpably, beyond all question, inconsistent with
the Constitution *73 of the United States. We are not to presume that
the state of New York has acted in bad faith. Nor can we assume that its
legislature acted without due deliberation, or that it did not determine this
question upon the fullest attainable information and for the common good.
We
cannot say that the state has acted without reason, nor ought we to proceed
upon the theory that its action is a mere sham. Our duty, I submit, is to
sustain the statute as not being in conflict with the Federal Constitution, for
the reason--and such is an all-sufficient
reason--it is not shown to be plainly and palpably inconsistent with that
instrument. Let the state alone in the management of its purely domestic
affairs, so long as it does not appear beyond all question that it has violated
the Federal Constitution. This view necessarily results from the principle that
the health and safety of the people of a state are primarily for the state to
guard and protect.
When
this court had before it the question of the constitutionality of a statute of
Kansas making it a criminal offense for a contractor for public work to permit
or require his employees to perform labor upon such work in excess of eight
hours each day, it was contended that the statute was in derogation of the
liberty both of employees and employer. It was further contended that the
Kansas statute was mischievous in its tendencies. This court, while disposing of
the question only as it affected public work, held that the
No evils
arising from such legislation could be more far reaching than those that might
come to our system of government if the judiciary, abandoning the sphere
assigned to it by the fundamental law, should enter the domain of legislation,
and upon grounds merely of justice or reason or wisdom annul statutes that had
received the sanction of the people’s representatives. We are reminded by
counsel that it is the solemn duty of the courts in cases before them to guard
the constitutional rights of the citizen against
merely arbitrary power. That is unquestionably true. But it is equally
true--indeed, the public interests imperatively demand--that legislative
enactments should be recognized and enforced by the courts as embodying the
will of the people, unless they are plainly and palpably beyond all question in
violation of the fundamental law of the Constitution.’
The
judgment, in my opinion, should be affirmed.