Court Cases Cited Within This Web Site
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)
 

A New York law limited bakers to working 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week. People who advocated shorter working hours believed such conditions were for the betterment of the public’s health, safety, and welfare.

Joseph Lochner was a master baker who owned a small bakery shop and was fined fifty dollars for allowing a worker to exceed the maximum weekly hours. The fine was upheld at all levels of state court.

Lochner appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that such a law violated the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving him of life, liberty and property without substantive due process of law. The further argument was that the law encroached upon the right to “liberty of contract.” The Court held that such liberty included the right to purchase and sell labor.

At issue was whether the law protected the public’s health, safety, and welfare, was a proper exercise of so-called police powers, and whether that interest overrode “liberty of contract.”

The Court concluded that the law was not a legitimate exercise of so-called police powers and held the law unconstitutional.

At a much more fundamental level, what was at stake was philosophical doctrines of social Darwinism versus economic laissez-faire. A few years later Theodore Roosevelt would note that Lochner created obstacles for “needed” social reforms. Regardless of the final decision, many people agree that the case represents a step into judicial activism.

Full Text: Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)