Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/262/522/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:05:43+00:00

Document:
These qualifications do not change the essence of the act. It curtails the right of the employer on the one hand, and of the employee on the other, to contract about his affairs. This is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the guaranty of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 43 Sup. Ct. 625, 67 L. E . , decided June 4, 1922. While there is no such thing as absolute freedom of contract, and it is subject to a variety of restraints, they must not be arbitrary or unreasoanble. Freedom is the general rule, and restraint the exception. The legislative authority to abridge can be justified only by exceptional circumstances. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 43 Sup. Ct. 394, 67 L. Ed. , decided April 9, 1923.
It is urged upon us that the declaration of the Legislature that the business of food preparation is affected with a public interest and devoted to a public use should be most persuasive with the court, and that nothing but the clearest reason to the contrary will prevail with the court to hold otherwise. To this point, counsel for the state cite Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361, 25 Sup. Ct. 676, 49 L. Ed. 1085, 4 Ann. Cas. 1171; Strickley v. Highland Boy Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 26 Sup. Ct. 301, 50 L. Ed. 581, 4 Ann. Cas. 1174; Hairston v. Danville & Western Ry. Co., 208 U. S. 598, 600, 28 Sup. Ct. 331, 52 L. Ed. 637, 13 Ann. Cas. 1008; Union Lime Co. v. Chicago & North Western Ry. Co., 233 U. S. 211, 34 Sup. Ct. 522, 58 L. Ed. 924; Jones v. Portland, 245 U. S. 217, 38 Sup. Ct. 112, 62 L. Ed. 252, L. R. A. 1918C, 765, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 660; and Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233, 40 Sup. Ct. 499, 64 L. Ed. 878. These cases are not especially helpful in determining how a business must be devoted to a public use to clothe it with a public interest so as to permit regulation of rates or prices. They were of two classesone where condemnation proceedings were opposed on the ground that private property could only be taken for a public use and the use contemplated by the Legislature was not a public one. The other was of tax suits in which the validity of the tax was denied because the use for which the tax was levied was not a public one. 'Public use' in such cases would seem to be a term of wider scope than where it is used to describe that which clothes property or business 'with a public interest.' In the former, the private owner is fully compensated for his property. In the latter, the use for which the tax is laid may be any purpose in which the state may engage and this covers almost any private business if the Legislature thinks the state's engagement in it will help the general public and is willing to pay the cost of the plant and incur the expense of operation.
It is urged that under this act the exercise of the power of compulsory arbitration rests upon the existence of a temporary emergency as in Wilson v. New. If that is a real factor here, as in Wilson v. New, and in Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135, 157, 41 Sup. Ct. 458, 65 L. Ed. 865, 16 A. L. R. 165 (see Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 43 Sup. Ct. 158, 67 L. Ed. , decided December 11, 1922) it is enough to say that the great temporary public exigencies, recognized by all and declared by Congress, were very different from that upon which the control under this act is asserted. Here it is said to be the danger that a strike in one establishment may spread to all the other similar establishments of the state and country, and thence to all the national sources of food supply so as to produce a shortage. Whether such danger exists has not been determined by the Legislature, but is determined under the law by a subordinate agency, and on its findings and prophecy owners and employers are to be deprived of freedom of contract and workers of a most important element of their freedom of labor.

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