Economic Substantive Due Process Flashcards
Lochner v. New York (1905) [Peckham]
Holding: A New York law limiting the maximum working hours for bakers violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
General right to make a contract in relation to one’s business, and to purchase and sell labor, is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the 14th Amendment, and this includes the right to purchase or sell labor.
Relevance: Anti-cannon (see Jamal Greene, The Anticannon), overruled by West Coast Hotel v. Parrish and Carolene Products v. U.S., but often cited as an example of the problems of recognizing unenumerated substantive due process rights.
Examples of Lochner Era Economic Substantive Due Process
Muller v. Oregon (1908) (upholding maximum hour law for women)
- Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923) (striking down minimum wage laws for women as violation of the due process clause)
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) [Hughes]
Relevance: Overrules Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, and calls into question the reasoning in Lochner.
Holding: Minimum wage laws for women do not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
No freedom of contract protected expressly by the Constitution. Due process clause does not guarantee absolute and uncontrollable liberty, but allows gov’t to regulate for health, safety, welfare.
U.S. v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) [Stone] Relevance
Relevance: Overrules Lochner, and establishes that instead, ordinary commercial regulations are subject to rational basis review unless they involve (a) a fundamental right; (b) a restriction on the political process; or (c) a suspect/quasi-suspect classification.
U.S. v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) FOOTNOTE 4
Presumption of constitutionality does not apply where:
(1) a law infringes on fundamental right protected by first 10 Amendments;
(2) legislation that restricts political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation;
(3) statutes directed at particular religious or racial minorities and there appears to be “prejudice against discrete and insular minorities” at work.
Williamson v. Lee Optical (1955)
Relevance: Example of the contemporary deferential rational basis standard under the due process clause.
“The Oklahoma law [making it illegal for opticians to fit, duplicate, or replace lenses] may exact a needless, wasteful requirement in many cases, but it is for the legislature, not the courts, to balance the advantages and disadvantages of the new requirement”
BMW v. Gore (1996) [Stevens]
Revival of economic substantive due process?
Relevance: Example of how the Court still reads to due process clause to protect unenumerated economic liberties (i.e., a right to be free from grossly excessive punitive damages)
Holding: It violates due process to impose a punitive damages award of $4 million where the compensatory damages were $4,000.
