Lochner v. NY

Question 1

Facts 1

Answer 1

• two types of bakeries around the turn of the century
  
  • small family-owned establishments for making bread
  • large unionized factories for making crackers→ Crackers last longer than bread
    
    • want to make as many as you can knowing you don’t have to sell them all now
• small bakeries
  
  • often operated in tenement house cellars = basement apartments
    
    • rents were low and the floors = sturdy enough to support an oven
    • poor sanitation, ventilation, low ceiling height, hot in the summer, freezing in the winter,
  • ovens must be operated 24/7 → making bread 24/7
  • average baker works 74 hours a week in 1895

Question 2

Facts 2

Answer 2

• NY passes bakeshop act of 1895
  
  • modeled on British bake house regulation act → 1863
  • Joseph Lochner, ran a small bakery in Utica → arrested

Question 3

Alternate view of bakeshop act

Answer 3

• designed to end competition from small bakeries
  
  • huge merger 3 years crated the national biscuit company
• unionized workers at large barkeries were okay with this
  
  • small bakery workers not unionized + were often Jewish
  • getting rid of competition from small bakeries
• small business owners = shoved aside in way of large business owners with unionized workers

Question 4

Issue

Answer 4

• whether a state law limiting work hours in a bakery violates the due process clause of the 14th amendment
  
  • held that 5-4 that the law infringes the liberty on contract of workers and owners in violation of the due process

Question 5

Opinons?

Answer 5

• three opinions → Peckham’s majority, Harlan and Holmes’ dissent are
  
  • very different in their orientations
  • equally important even though 1 sets a precedent

Question 6

Why is Liberty of Contract important in this case?

Answer 6

• liberty of contract presumes adults are capable of making their own business arrangements without arbitrary government interference
  
  • gov intervention means playing favorites in a dispute instead of staying neutral → picking winners and losers
  • gov = has obligation to be neutral + let things work themselves out
• liberty of contract was overturned in 1937 but this logic exists in other substantive due process rights
• presumes adults can make relationship/family planning decisions without arbitrary gov interference

Question 7

Majority Opinion + Liberty of contract

Answer 7

• Delivered by Justice Peckham
• liberty of contract established in Allgeyer v. Louisiana
  
  • the right to purchase or to sell labor is part of the liberty protected by the 14th amendment unless there are circumstances that exclude that right
• distinguishes Holden v. Hardy
  
  • 8hour workday for working in mines
  • court 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 reasonable and proper for the state to interfere with the right to work longer workdays
  • this case = different…
  • example of state finding circumstance where the right to liberty and contract can be infringed → this one = different
• liberty of contract protects whos rights → bakery workers and bakery owners
  
  • one has as much right to purchase labor as the other has to sell labor
• who decides what the stakes are → who decides if you are close to holden v. hardy situation where the state can interfere or a situation where the state cant
  
  • Judicial ?
  • must be answered by the court

Question 8

Majority Opinion + Limits on Police Power

Answer 8

• direct response to the restraint based argument made by homes in his dissent
• “it must of course be conceded that there is a limit to the valid exercise of police power by the state otherwise 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… the claim of the police power would be a mere pretext. become another and delusive name for the supreme soverignty of the state to be exercised free from constitutional restraint

Question 9

Majority Opinion + Logic

Answer 9

• The Bakeshop act = a labor law, pure and simple
  
  • impermissible interference with liberty of contract → of gov into something that should be left to the free market
  • hard to say that this intervention is helping workers at the expense of bakery owners
  • whose rights to free contract is being infringed upon = workers and owners → something wrong with gov interference here
    
    • labor laws = means gov playing favorites and not staying neutral → law infringes on both sides of disputes
• Grown ass men don’t need government help
  
  • “they’re in no sense wards of the state” → not a class of individuals who need government intervention
• This is not about the health of bakers
  
  • this law is not about that
  • mining is most dangerous → baking is not as dangerous
  • if its something in the middle → gov cannot intervene here because that means “no trade, no occupation, no mode of earning one’s living could escape this all-pervading power”
• This isn’t about public health
  
  • not particularly dangerous → somewhere in the middle
  • clean bread does not depend on the number of hours a baker works → where screw-ups would occur in this = facilities that are unclean or uninspected not if the baker is tired or not

Question 10

Majority + Two-Pronged Test

Answer 10

• to pass….
  
  • the relationship between the law as a strategy and the end police powers goal cannot be remote but instead must be more direct
  • must be a remote connection between tired bakers and threats to their health or threats to the health of the public → need stronger connection before the law can be upheld
• the kind of police powers goal must be appropriate and legitimate
• subjectivity means you could have different judges agree
  
  • might come to diff conclusions about whether the law passes the test or not
• end not appropriate and legitimate and a direct relationship between the goal and the problem
• work hours = so remote it fails the appropriate end prong → violates liberty of contract
  
  • has so little to do/ is so unrelated to the promotion of public health → real end goal = gov taking sides → not appropriate because bakers are adults

Question 11

Harlan Argument

Answer 11

• harlan also thinks it exists and shold be protected but is willing to give state legislatures a little more room to act
  
  • “any freedom is subject to such regulation as the state may reasonably prescribe or the common good and the wellbeing of society”
• as a result of this diff premise → diff test
  
  • courts can onyl strike a law if it has no real or substantial relation to the public health, public morals, or public sagety
  • gives benefit of doubt to state legislatures
• differs on both prongs
  
  • don’t need to justify end goals of law as legitimate or appropriate just needs to be some how relation to public health, morals, and safety
  • have to prove that there is no real relationship between how the law operates and the achievement of something related to the police powers
  • burden of proof = on those challenging laws instead of on state legislatures
    
    • state legislatures know what there doing → trying not to doubt them → judicial restraint argument

Question 12

Harlan + Logic

Answer 12

• Sociological Jurisprudence
  
  • consumers expect access to fresh bread at all hours of day → much more important to have access to it in the morning than at other times of the day
  • means that there is no logical quitting time → bake in night for morning, bake in morning for afternoon, bake in afternoon for evening
  • ovens have to be going for 24/7
• number of hours for workman labor = allowed → should be resolved by legislatures, not in the courts

Question 13

Holmes Argument

Answer 13

• not about law
• is about judges imposing economic theory and social vision on the rest of the country
  
  • economic theoy = laissez faire economics
• does not think that liberty of contract is a meaningful statue
  
  • because of all the ways government infringes on freedoms daily
    
    • says bars cannot be open on sundays
    • banks cannot have absorbant interest rates
    • states invade freedom everytime your tax money goes to causes you don’t like
    • every single one of those laws has to be struck down according to perckham = is holmes reading → this would be insane
      
      • laws = been around for thousands of years

Question 14

Social Darwinism Defined

Answer 14

Social Darwinism: survival of the fittest applied to the human race

• some groups of humans = naturally suited to success then others
• gov = obligation to not allow groups who are poorly adapted at sucessedding to survive→ they should go extinct
• holmes = accusing pecham of empodying these harsh ways of thinking and mistaking that for valid consiutional law

Question 15

Holmes Test

Answer 15

• so committed to the idea of restrained judiciary → the way he sets up test = no judge just hypothetical random person
• police powers are not part of the test, therefore there is no need to measure the relationship between the law as a strategy and a police powers goal
  
  • man on the street should not think law infringes fundamental right = if that is the case → law should be upheld
  • giving legislation the authorization to do anything = is okay with that
• does not think judges should be the ones to defeat this law
• thinks that the man on the street would think this would have something to do with public health → good enough for him → law upheld