Bunting v. Oregon

243 U.S. 426

Case Year: 1917

Case Ruling: 5-3, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: McKenna

FACTS

This case involves an Oregon statute that made it unlawful to employ a worker in any mill, factory, or manufacturing facility for more than ten hours per day. However, the statute permitted overtime work, not to exceed three hours per day, if paid at one and one-half times the normal rate. An exception was made for emergency situations when life or property was in imminent danger.

Franklin Bunting was convicted of violating the act by employing a worker at the Lake View Flouring Mills for thirteen hours in a single day and not paying him at the prescribed rate. He was sentenced to a $50 fine. The Oregon Supreme Court upheld the conviction, and Bunting appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the validity of the law on substantive due process grounds. The law, he claimed, was an unconstitutional regulation of wages under the guise of protecting employee health.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

The consonance of the Oregon law with the 14th Amendment is the question in the case, and this depends upon whether it is a proper exercise of the police power of the state, as the supreme court of the state decided that it is.

That the police power extends to health regulations is not denied, but it is denied that the law has such purpose or justification. It is contended that it is a wage law, not a health regulation, and takes the property of plaintiff inerror without due process. The contention presents two questions: (1) Is the law a wage law, or an hours-of-service law? And (2) if the latter, has it equality of operation?

Section 1 of the law expresses the policy that impelled its enactment to be the interest of the state in the physical well-being of its citizens and that it is injurious to their health for them to work ‘in any mill, factory or manufacturing establishment’ more than ten hours in any one day; and [Section] 2, as we have seen, forbids their employment in those places for a longer time. If, therefore, we take the law at its word, there can be no doubt of its purpose, and the supreme court of the state has added the confirmation of its decision, by declaring that ‘the aim of the statute is to fix the maximum hours of service in certain industries. The act makes no attempt to fix the standard of wages. No maximum or minimum wage is named. That is left wholly to the contracting parties.’ ... Of course, mere declaration cannot give character to a law nor turn illegal into legal operation, and when such attempt is palpable, this court necessarily has the power of review....

There is a certain verbal plausibility in the contention that [the law] was intended to permit thirteen hours’ work if there be fifteen and one-half hours’ pay, but the plausibility disappears upon reflection. The provision for overtime is permissive, in the same sense that any penalty may be said to be permissive. Its purpose is to deter by its burden, and its adequacy for this was a matter of legislative judgment under the particular circumstances. It may not achieve its end, but its insufficiency cannot change its character from penalty to permission. Besides, it is to be borne in mind that the legislature was dealing with a matter in which many elements were to be considered. It might not have been possible, it might not have been wise, to make a rigid prohibition. We can easily realize that the legislature deemed it sufficient for its policy to give to the law an adaptation to occasions different from special cases of emergency for which it provided,--occasions not of such imperative necessity, and yet which should have some accommodation; abuses prevented by the requirement of higher wages. Or even a broader contention might be made that the legislature considered it a proper policy to meet the conditions long existent by a tentative restraint of conduct rather than by an absolute restraint, and achieve its purpose through the interest of those affected rather than by the positive fiat of the law.

We cannot know all of the conditions that impelled the law or its particular form. The supreme court, nearer to them, describes the law as follows: ‘It is clear that the intent of the law is to make ten hours a regular day’s labor in the occupations to which reference is made. Apparently the provisions permitting labor for the overtime on express conditions were made in order to facilitate the enforcement of the law, and in the nature of a mild penalty for employing one not more than three hours overtime. It might be regarded as more difficult to detect violations of the law by an employment for a shorter time than for a longer time. This penalty also goes to the employee in case the employer avails himself of the overtime clause.’

But we need not cast about for reasons for the legislative judgment. We are not required to be sure of the precise reasons for its exercise, or be convinced of the wisdom of its exercise. It is enough for our decision if the legislation under review was passed in the exercise of an admitted power of government; and that it is not as complete asit might be, not as rigid in its prohibitions as it might be, gives, perhaps, evasion too much play, is lighter in its penalties than it might be, is no impeachment of its legality. This may be a blemish, giving opportunity for criticism and difference in characterization, but the constitutional validity of legislation cannot be determined by the degree of exactness of its provisions or remedies. New policies are usually tentative in their beginnings, advance in firmness as they advance in acceptance. They do not at a particular moment of time spring full-perfect in extent or means from the legislative brain. Time may be necessary to fashion them to precedent customs and conditions, and as they justify themselves or otherwise they pass from militancy to triumph or from question to repeal.

But passing general considerations and coming back to our immediate concern, which is the validity of the particular exertion of power in the Oregon law, our judgment of it is that it does not transcend constitutional limits.

This case is submitted by plaintiff in error upon the contention that the law is a wage law, not an hours-of-service law, and he rests his case on that contention. To that contention we address our decision and do not discuss or consider the broader contentions of counsel for the state that would justify the law even as a regulation of wages.

There is a contention made that the law, even regarded as regulating hours of service, is not either necessary or useful ‘for preservation of the health of employees in mills, factories, and manufacturing establishments.’ The record contains no facts to support the contention, and against it is the judgment of the legislature and the supreme court, which said: ‘In view of the well-known fact that the custom in our industries does not sanction a longer service than ten hours per day, it cannot be held, as a matter of law, that the legislative requirement is unreasonable or arbitrary as to hours of labor. Statisticsshow that the average daily working time among workingmen in different countries is, in Australia, 8 hours; in Britain, 9; in the United States, 9 3/4; in Denmark, 9 3/4; in Norway, 10; Sweden, France, and Switzerland, 10 1/2; Germany, 10 1/4; Belgium, Italy, and Austria, 11; and in Russia, 12 hours.’

The next contention of plaintiff in error is that the law discriminates against mills, factories, and manufacturing establishments in that it requires that a manufacturer, without reason other than the fiat of the legislature, shall pay for a commodity, meaning labor, one and one-half times the market value thereof while other people, purchasing labor in like manner in the open market, are not subjected to the same burden. But the basis of the contention is that which we have already disposed of; that is, that the law regulates wages, not hours of service. Regarding it as the latter, there is a basis for the classification.

Further discussion we deem unnecessary.

Judgment affirmed.