Procedural/Substantive Due Process Flashcards
Substantive Due Process
Asks about the substance of the law itself, now the process. SDP analysis asks whether the government has an adequate reason or justification for depriving or taking away a person’s life, liberty, or property.
Bowser: This aspect of Due Process is NOT interested in procedural safeguards.
Here the question in effect is this: Assuming that the government provides all the procedural protections at the right time, ensuring that the facts that would trigger the deprivation are demonstrated, can the government constitutionally deprive the person of the life, liberty or property interest on the basis of the established facts. (Ex:Can the state award custody of a child to the taller parent?)
The Lochner Era
Aggressively protected economic rights - state laws regulating maximum hours and minimum wages were declared unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, interfering with the substantive due process right of freedom of contract.
Lochner v. New York (1905)
Case Facts: New York law set maximum hours for bakery employees. Lochner owned a bakery and had an employee working more than the maximum requirement, and he challenged the constitutionality of the NY law.
Majority: State law is unconstitutional because freedom to contract is a substantive implication of the Fourteenth Amendment and the court otherwise overstepped its police power.
If the state were to regulate this basic right, it would only be valid under “police purpose,” so that government could interfere only to protect public safety, health, and morals.
Nebbia v. New York (1934)
The beginning of Lochner’s goodbye!
Case Facts: NY law set minimum and maximum milk prices.
Majority: The state law is actually okay! The court reasoned that neither property rights nor contract rights are absolute - government cannot exist if the citizen may at will use her property to the detriment of her fellows, or exercise her freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental with the private right is that of the public to regulate it in the common interest.
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)
Case Facts: State law creating a minimum wage law for women.
Majority: Lochner era case law guaranteeing Substantive Due Process to contract without any governmental interference is overruled.
Post Lochner Era
In terms of economic interests, the government can regulate to serve a legitimate purpose, and the judiciary should defer to the legislature’s choices.
The FEDERAL Constitution’s Fourteenth Am. governs the actions of state/local governments.
Procedural Due Process
Assumes that the gov’t has the constitutional authority, if certain facts exist, to address the harm it identifies by depriving a person of life, liberty or property.
The Question is whether there are sufficient procedural safeguards in place to ensure that the deprivation is not premature. (Ex: What procedural safeguards must be in place (and at what time) to remove a child from the custody of a parent?)
