Morehead v. New York

298 U.S. 587

Case Year: 1936

Case Ruling: 5-4, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: Butler

FACTS

In 1935 Joseph Tipaldo was indicted in Kings County, New York--charged with a failure to obey a mandatory order from the state industrial commissioner to pay the prescribed minimum wage to women working in his laundry. The order was based on a 1933 New York law that allowed the state to set a minimum wage for women and minors engaged in any occupation other than domestic service and farm work. The statute stipulated that the minimum wage should be fair compensation based on the reasonable value of the service performed. Tipaldo was imprisoned pending his trial. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus requesting that the court order warden Frederick Morehead to release him from jail. He contended that the minimum wage law in New York violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment--an argument based primarily on Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923), which found a similar law in the District of Columbia unconstitutional. Tipaldo won his case in New York’s highest court, and the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

MR. JUSTICE BUTLER DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

The state court rightly held that the Adkins Case controls this one and requires that [Tipaldo] be discharged upon the ground that the legislation under which he was indicted and imprisoned is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The general statement in the New York Act of the fields of labor it includes, taken in connection with the work not covered, indicates legislative intention to reach nearly all private employers of women. The act does not extend to men. It does extend to boys and girls under the age of 21 years but there is here involved no question as to its validity in respect of wages to be prescribed for them. [Tipaldo’s] petition for the writ shows that the charge against him is that as manager of a laundry he ‘disobeyed a mandatory order prescribing certain minimum wages for certain adult women employees of the said laundry.’ The rights of no other class of workers are here involved.

Upon the face of the act the question arises whether the state may impose upon the employers state-made minimum wage rates for all competent experienced women workers whom they may have in their service. That question involves another one. It is: Whether the state has power similarly to subject to state-made wages all adult women employed in trade, industry or business, other than house and farm work. These were the questions decided in the Adkins Case. So far at least as concerns the validity of the enactment under consideration, the restraint imposed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment upon legislative power of the state is the same as that imposed by the corresponding provision of the Fifth Amendment upon the legislative power of the United States.

This court’s opinion [in Adkins] shows: The right to make contracts about one’s affairs is a part of the liberty protected by the due process clause. Within this liberty are provisions of contracts between employer and employee fixing the wages to be paid. In making contracts of employment, generally speaking, the parties have equal right to obtain from each other the best terms they can by private bargaining. Legislative abridgement of that freedom can only be justified by the existence of exceptional circumstances. Freedom of contract is the general rule and restraint the exception. This court has found not repugnant to the due process clause statutes fixing rates and charges to be exacted by businesses impressed with a public interest, relating to contracts for the performance of public work, prescribing the character, methods and time of payment of wages, fixing hours of labor. Physical differences between men and women must be recognized in proper cases and legislation fixing hours or conditions of work may properly take them into account, but ‘we cannot accept the doctrine that women of mature age, sui juris, require or may be subjected to restrictions upon their liberty of contract which could not lawfully be imposed in the case of men under similar circumstances. To do so would be to ignore all the implications to be drawn from the present day trend of legislation, as well as that of common thought and usage, by which woman is accorded emancipation from the old doctrine that she must be given special protection or be subjected to special restraint in her contractual and civil relationships.... Enough has been said to show that the authority to fix hours of labor cannot be exercised except in respect of those occupations where work of long continued duration is detrimental to health. This court has been careful in every case where the question has been raised, to place its decision upon this limited authority of the Legislature to regulate hours of labor and to disclaim any purpose to uphold the legislation as fixing wages, thus recognizing an essential difference between the two. It seems plain that these decisions afford no real support for any form of law establishing minimum wages.’

The [ Adkins] decision and the reasoning upon which it rests clearly show that the state is without power by any form of legislation to prohibit, change or nullify contracts between employers and adult women workers as to the amount of wages to be paid....

To distinguish this [case] from the Adkins Case, petitioner refers to changes in conditions that have come since that decision, cites great increase during recent years in the number of women wage earners and invokes the first section of the act, called ‘Factual background.’ The act is not to meet an emergency; it discloses a permanent policy; the increasing number of women workers suggests that more and more they are getting and holding jobs that otherwise would belong to men. The ‘factual background’ must be read in the light of the circumstances attending its enactment. The New York legislature passed two minimum wage measures and contemporaneously submitted them to the governor. One was approved; it is the act now before us. The other was vetoed and did not become law. They contained the same definitions of oppressive wage and fair wage and in general provided the same machinery and procedure culminating in fixing minimum wages by directory orders. The one vetoed was for an emergency; it extended to men as well as to women employees; it did not provide for the enforcement of wages by mandatory orders.

It is significant that their ‘factual backgrounds’ are much alike.... These legislative declarations, in form of findings or recitals of fact, serve well to illustrate why any measure that deprives employers and adult women of freedom to agree upon wages, leaving employers and men employees free so to do, is necessarily arbitrary. Much, if not all that in them is said in justification of the regulations that the act imposes in respect of women’s wages apply with equal force in support of the same regulation of men’s wages. While men are left free to fix their wages by agreement with employers, it would be fanciful to suppose that the regulation of women’s wages would be useful to prevent or lessen the evils listed in the first section of the act. Men in need of work are as likely as women to accept the low wages offered by unscrupulous employers. Men in greater number than women support themselves and dependents and because of need will work for whatever wages they can get and that without regard to the value of the service and even though the pay is less than minima prescribed in accordance with this act. It is plain that, under circumstances such as those portrayed in the ‘factual background,’ prescribing of minimum wages for women alone would unreasonably restrain them in competition with men and tend arbitrarily to deprive them of employment and a fair chance to find work.

This court, on the authority of the Adkins Case and with the acquiescence of all the justices who dissented from the decision, held repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment statutes of Arizona and Arkansas, respectively, fixing minimum wages for women. We have adhered to the principle there applied and cited it as a guide in other cases. States having similar enactments have construed it to prevent the fixing of wages for adult women.

The New York court’s decision conforms to ours in the Adkins Case, and the later rulings that we have made on the authority of that case. That decision was deliberately made upon careful consideration of the oral arguments and briefs of the respective parties and also of briefs submitted on behalf of states and others as amici curiae. In [subsequent cases] ... this court, after thoughtful attention to all that was suggested against that decision, adhered to it as sound. And in each case, being clearly of opinion that no discussion was required to show that, having regard to the principles applied in theAdkins Case, the state legislation fixing wages for women was repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we so held.... It is equally plain that the judgment in the case now before us must also be affirmed. It is so ordered.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HUGHES, DISSENTING.

I am unable to concur in the opinion in this case. In view of the difference between the statutes involved, I cannot agree that the case should be regarded as controlled by Adkins v. Children’s Hospital. And I can find nothing in the Federal Constitution which denies to the state the power to protect women from being exploited by overreaching employers through the refusal of a fair wage as defined in the New York statute and ascertained in a reasonable manner by competent authority....

... The constitutional validity of a minimum wage statute like the New York act has not heretofore been passed upon by this Court.... [T]he required correspondence of the prescribed ‘fair wage’ to the reasonable value of the service which the employee performs stands out as an essential feature of the statutory plan. The statute for the District of Columbia which was before us in the Adkins Case did not have that feature. That statute provided for a minimum wage adequate ‘to supply the necessary cost of living to women workers’ and ‘to maintain them in health and to protect their morals.’ The standard thus set up did not take account of the reasonable value of the service rendered. As this Court said, it compelled the employer ‘to pay at least the sum fixed in any event, because the employee needs it, but requires no service of equivalent value from the employee.’ In the cases of Murphy v. Sardell and Donham v. West-Nelson Company, the statutes of Arizona and Arkansas, respectively, were of a similar character, and both these cases were decided upon the authority of theAdkins Case. New York and other states have been careful to adopt a different and improved standard, in order to meet the objection aimed at the earlier statutes, by requiring a fair equivalence of wage and service.

That the difference is a material one, I think is shown by the opinion in the Adkins Case. That opinion contained a broad discussion of state power, but it singled out as an adequate ground for the finding of invalidity that the statute gave no regard to the situation of the employer and to the reasonable value of the service for which the wage was paid....

...We have had frequent occasion to consider the limitations of liberty of contract. While it is highly important to preserve that liberty from arbitrary and capricious interference, it is also necessary to prevent its abuse, as otherwise it could be used to override all public interests and thus in the end destroy the very freedom of opportunity which it is designed to safeguard. We have repeatedly said that liberty of contract is a qualified and not an absolute right....

When there are conditions which specially touch the health and well-being of women, the state may exert its power in a reasonable manner for their protection, whether or not a similar regulation is, or could be, applied to men. The distinctive nature and function of women--their particular relation to the social welfare--has put them in a separate class. This separation and corresponding distinctions in legislation is one of the outstanding traditions of legal history. The Fourteenth Amendment found the states with that protective power and did not take it away or remove the reasons for its exercise. Changes have been effected within the domain of state policy and upon an appraisal of state interests. We have not yet arrived at a time when we are at liberty to override the judgment of the state and decide that women are not the special subject of exploitation because they are women and as such are not in a relatively defenseless position....

If liberty of contract were viewed from the standpoint of absolute right, there would be as much to be said against a regulation of the hours of labor of women as against the fixing of a minimum wage. Restriction upon hours is a restriction upon the making of contracts and upon earning power. But the right being a qualified one, we must apply in each case the test of reasonableness in the circumstances disclosed. Here, the special conditions calling for the protection of women, and for the protection of society itself, are abundantly shown. The legislation is not less in the interest of the community as a whole than in the interest of the women employees who are paid less than the value of their services. That lack must be made goods out of the public purse. Granted that the burden of the support of women who do not receive a living wage cannot be transferred to employers who pay the equivalent of the service they obtain, there is no reason why the burden caused by the failure to pay that equivalent should not be placed upon those who create it. The fact that the state cannot secure the benefit to society of a living wage for women employees by any enactment which bears unreasonably upon employers does not preclude the state from seeking its objective by means entirely fair both to employers and the women employed.

In the statute before us, no unreasonableness appears. The end is legitimate and the means appropriate. I think that the act should be upheld.

I am authorized to state that MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS, MR. JUSTICE STONE, and MR. JUSTICE CARDOZO join in this opinion.

MR. JUSTICE STONE [DISSENTING].

In the years which have intervened since the Adkins Case we have had opportunity to learn that a wage is not always the resultant of free bargaining between employers and employees; that it may be one forced upon employees by their economic necessities and upon employers by the most ruthless of their competitors. We have had opportunity to perceive more clearly that a wage insufficient to support the worker does not visit its consequences upon him alone; that it may affect profoundly the entire economic structure of society and, in any case, that it casts on every taxpayer, and on government itself, the burden of solving the problems of poverty, subsistence, health, and morals of large numbers in the community. Because of their nature and extent these are public problems. A generation ago they were for the individual to solve; to-day they are the burden of the nation. It is not for the courts to resolve doubts whether the remedy by wage regulation is as efficacious as many believe, or is better than some other, or is better even than the blind operation of uncontrolled economic forces. The legislature must be free to choose unless government is to be rendered impotent. The Fourteenth Amendment has no more embedded in the Constitution our preference for some particular set of economic beliefs, than it has adopted, in the name of liberty, the system of theology which we may happen to approve.

... Unless we are now to construe and apply the Fourteenth Amendment without regard to our decisions since the Adkins Case, we could not rightly avoid its reconsideration even if it were not asked. We should follow our decision in the Nebbia Case and leave the selection and the method of the solution of the problems to which the statute is addressed where it seems to me the Constitution has left them, to the legislative branch of the government. The judgment should be reversed.

MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS and MR. JUSTICE CARDOZO join in this opinion.