Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/298/587/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:31:54+00:00

Document:
1. This Court, in certiorari cases, confines itself to the ground upon which the writ was asked for and granted. P. 298 U. S. 604.
"both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health;"
it defines "a fair wage" as one "fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service or class of service rendered," and empowers a commissioner, if he be of the opinion that any substantial number of women in any occupation are receiving "oppressive and unreasonable" wages, to appoint a wage board to make inquiry and report its recommendations as to minimum fair wage standards. Standards so reported, when accepted by the commissioner, after publication and further hearings, may be enforced by his mandatory order, violation of which is punishable by fine and imprisonment. The New York Court of Appeals in this case construed the statute as requiring that the minimum wages to be fixed under it shall be not only equal to the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered, but also sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health, and decided that, so construed, it was unconstitutional.
(1) This Court is bound to accept the state court's construction of the statute. Pp. 298 U. S. 605, 298 U. S. 609.
(2) So far as concerns the validity of this Act, the restraint imposed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment upon the legislative power of the State is the same as that imposed by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment upon the legislative power of the United States. P. 298 U. S. 610.
(3) The Act, as construed by the state court, is in conflict with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. P. 298 U. S. 609 et seq.
nullify contracts between employers and adult women workers as to the amount of wages to be paid. The dominant issue in that case was whether Congress had power to establish minimum wages for adult women workers in the District of Columbia. The opinion directly answers in the negative. The ruling that defects in the prescribed standard stamped the Act of Congress as arbitrary and invalid was an additional ground of subordinate consequence. P. 298 U. S. 610.
4. The "factual background" of this case does not distinguish it in principle from the Adkins case, supra. P. 298 U. S. 614.
Certiorari, 297 U.S. 702, to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of New York, entered on remittitur from the Court of Appeals. Tipaldo had been placed in custody on a charge of disobeying an administrative order prescribing minimum wages for women employees. The trial court's dismissal of a writ of habeas corpus was reversed by the decision under review.
This is a habeas corpus case originating in the Supreme Court of New York. Relator was indicted in the County Court of Kings County and sent to jail to await trial upon the charge that, as manager of a laundry, he failed to obey the mandatory order of the state industrial commissioner prescribing minimum wages for women employees.
The relator's petition for the writ avers that the statute, c. 584 of the Laws of 1933 (Consol.Law, c. 31, art. 19), under which the commissioner made the order, insofar as it purports to authorize him to fix women's wages, is repugnant to the due process clause, Art. 1, § 6, of the Constitution of the State and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The application for the writ is grounded upon the claim that the state statute is substantially identical with the minimum wage law enacted by Congress for the District of Columbia, 40 Stat. 960, which, in 1923, was condemned by this Court as repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525.
The warden's return, without disclosing the commissioner's order, the prescribed wages, the findings essential to his jurisdiction to establish them, things done in pursuance of the Act, or the allegations of the indictment, merely shows that, under an order of the county court, he was detaining relator for trial. The case was submitted on petition and return. The court dismissed the writ. People ex rel. Tipaldo v. Morehead, 156 Misc. 522, 282 N.Y.S. 576. Relator took the case to the Court of Appeals. It held the Act repugnant to the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions. 270 N.Y. 233, 200 N.E. 799. The remittitur directed that the order appealed from be reversed, the writ sustained, and the prisoner discharged; it certified that the federal constitutional question was presented and necessarily passed on. The supreme court entered judgment as directed. We granted a writ of certiorari.
§ 551(6). It is not an emergency law. It does not regulate hours or any conditions affecting safety or protection of employees. It relates only to wages of adult women and minors. As the record is barren of details in respect of investigation, findings, amounts being paid women workers in laundries or elsewhere prior to the order, or of things done to ascertain the minimum prescribed, we must take it as granted that, if the State is permitted, as against employers and their women employees, to establish and enforce minimum wages, that power has been validly exerted. It is to be assumed that the rates have been fairly made in accordance with the procedure prescribed by the Act and in full compliance with the defined standards. If, consistently with the due process clause, the State may not enter upon regulation of the sort undertaken by the challenged enactment, then plainly it cannot, by diligence to insure the establishment of just minima, create power to enter that field. Cf. St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, ante, p. 298 U. S. 38; Baltimore & Ohio R. v. United States, ante, p. 298 U. S. 349.
asked or granted. Alice State Bank v. Houston Pasture Co., 247 U. S. 240, 247 U. S. 242; Clark v. Williard, 294 U. S. 211, 294 U. S. 216. Here, the review granted was no broader than that sought by the petitioner. Johnson v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 289 U. S. 479, 289 U. S. 494. He is not entitled, and does not ask, to be heard upon the question whether the Adkins case should be overruled. He maintains that it may be distinguished on the ground that the statutes are vitally dissimilar.
The District of Columbia Act provided for a board to ascertain and declare "standards of minimum wages" for women in any occupation, and what wages were "inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living to any such women workers to maintain them in good health and to protect their morals." § 9. Violations were punishable by fine and imprisonment. § 18. The declared purposes were to protect women from conditions detrimental to their health and morals, resulting from wages inadequate to maintain decent standards of living. § 23.
The New York Act declares it to be against public policy for any employer to employ any woman at an oppressive and unreasonable wage (§ 552) defined as one which is "both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health." § 551(7). "A fair wage" is one "fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service or class of service rendered." § 551(8). If the commissioner is of opinion that any substantial number of women in any occupation are receiving oppressive and unreasonable wages, he shall appoint a wage board to report upon the establishment of minimum fair wage rates. § 554. After investigation, the board shall submit a report including its recommendations as to minimum fair wage standards. § 555.
of service under this article, the commissioner and the wages board, without being bound by any technical rules of evidence or procedure, (1) may take into account all relevant circumstances affecting the value of the service or class of service rendered, and (2) may be guided by like considerations as would guide a court in a suit for the reasonable value of services rendered where services are rendered at the request of an employer without contract as to the amount of the wage to be paid, and (3) may consider the wages paid in the state for work of like or comparable character by employers who voluntarily maintain minimum fair wage standards."
If the commissioner accepts the report, he shall publish it, and a public hearing must be held. § 556. If, after the hearing, he approves the report, he "shall make a directory order which shall define minimum fair wage rates." § 557. Upon hearing and finding of disobedience, the commissioner may publish the name of an employer as having failed to observe the directory order. § 559. If, after a directory order has been in effect for nine months, the commissioner is of opinion that persistent nonobservance is a threat to the maintenance of the prescribed standards, he may, after hearing, make the order mandatory. § 560. Violation of a mandatory order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment or both. § 565(2).
from the living wage defined in the District Act. The exertion of the granted power to prescribe minimum wages is by the state act conditioned upon a finding by the commissioner or other administrative agency that a substantial number of women in any occupation are receiving wages that are oppressive and unreasonable -- i.e., less than value of the service and less than a living wage. That finding is essential to jurisdiction of the commissioner. In the state court, there was controversy between the parties as to whether the "minimum fair wage rates" are required to be established solely upon value of service, or upon that value and the living wage. Against the contention of the attorney general, the Court of Appeals held that the minimum wage must be based on both elements.
"We find no material difference between the Act of Congress and this act of the New York State Legislature. The act of Congress, it is said, was to protect women from conditions resulting from wages which were inadequate to maintain decent standards of living."
"The purpose of the statute in the Adkins case was to guarantee a wage based solely upon the necessities of the workers. The statute did not provide for the wages to have any relationship to earning power; was applicable to all vocations, and not to the character of the work. . . . As contrasted with this statute, the New York Minimum Wage Law provides a definite standard for wages paid. It provides that the worker is to be paid at least the value of the services rendered."
less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health. The act of Congress had one standard, the living wage; this state act has added another, reasonable value. The minimum wage must include both. What was vague before has not been made any clearer. One of the elements, therefore, in fixing the fair wage is the very matter which was the basis of the congressional act. Forcing the payment of wages at a reasonable value does not make inapplicable the principle and ruling of the Adkins case. The distinctions between this case and the Adkins case are difference in details, methods, and time; the exercise of legislative power to fix wages in any employment is the same."
The petitioner does not suggest, and reasonably it cannot be thought, that, so far as concerns repugnancy to the due process clause, there is any difference between the minimum wage law for the District of Columbia and the clause of the New York act, "less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health." Petitioner does not claim that element was validated by including with it the other ingredient, "less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered."
"'The act of Congress had one standard -- the living wage; this State act has added another -- reasonable value. The minimum wage must include both. What was vague before has not been made any clearer. One of the elements, therefore, in fixing the fair wage is the very matter which was the basis of the congressional act.'"
evaluating and arriving at the 'fair minimum wage' is the fair value of the services rendered."
There is no blinking the fact that the state court construed the prescribed standard to include cost of living, or that petitioner here refuses to accept that construction. Petitioner's contention that the Court of Appeals misconstrued the Act cannot be entertained. This Court is without power to put a different construction upon the state enactment from that adopted by the highest court of the State. We are not at liberty to consider petitioner's argument based on the construction repudiated by that court. The meaning of the statute, as fixed by its decision, must be accepted here as if the meaning had been specifically expressed in the enactment. Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias v. Meyer, 265 U. S. 30, 265 U. S. 32. Exclusive authority to enact carries with it final authority to say what the measure means. Jones v. Prairie Oil & Gas Co., 273 U. S. 195, 273 U. S. 200. The standard of "minimum fair wage rates" for women workers to be prescribed must be considered as if both elements -- value of service and living wage -- were embodied in the statutory definition itself. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 216, 234 U. S. 220. As our construction of an Act of Congress must be deemed by state courts to be the law of the United States, so this New York Act, as construed by her court of last resort, must here be taken to express the intention and purpose of her lawmakers. Green v. Neal's Lessee, 6 Pet. 291, 31 U. S. 295-298.
The state court rightly held that the Adkins case controls this one, and requires that relator 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.
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. Relator'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.
"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 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.
"The ethical right of every worker, man or woman, to have a living wage may be conceded. The fallacy of the proposed method of attaining it is that it assumes that every employer is bound at all events to furnish it. The moral requirement, implicit in every contract of employment -- viz., that the amount to be paid and the service to be rendered shall bear to each other some relation of just equivalence -- is completely ignored. The necessities of the employee are alone considered, and these arise outside of the employment, and are as great in one occupation as in another. "
"Should a statute undertake to vest in a commission power to determine the quantity of food necessary for individual support, and require the shopkeeper, if he sell to the individual at all, to furnish that quantity at not more than a fixed maximum, it would undoubtedly fall before the constitutional test. The fallacy of any argument in support of the validity of such a statute would be quickly exposed. The argument in support of that now being considered is equally fallacious, though the weakness of it may not be so plain. A statute requiring an employer to pay in money, to pay at prescribed and regular intervals, to pay the value of the services rendered, even to pay with fair relation to the extent of the benefit obtained from the service, would be understandable. But a statute which prescribes payment without regard to any of these things, and solely with relation to circumstances apart from the contract of employment, the business affected by it, and the work done under it, is so clearly the product of a naked, arbitrary exercise of power that it cannot be allowed to stand under the Constitution of the United States."
alone. As shown above, the dominant issue in the Adkins case was whether Congress had power to establish minimum wages for adult women workers in the District of Columbia. The opinion directly answers in the negative. The ruling that defects in the prescribed standard stamped that Act as arbitrary and invalid was an additional ground of subordinate consequence.
"The question in this case is the broad one, whether Congress can establish minimum rates of wages for women in the District of Columbia with due provision for special circumstances, or whether we must say that Congress had no power to meddle with the matter at all."
And, after assuming that women would not be employed at the wages fixed unless they were earned or unless the employer could pay them, the opinion says (p. 261 U. S. 570): "But the ground on which the law is held to fail is fundamental, and therefore it is unnecessary to consider matters of detail." If the decision of the court turned upon the question of the validity of the particular standard, that question could not have been ignored by the justices who were in favor of upholding the act. Clearly they understood, and rightly, that, by the opinion of the court, it was held that Congress was without power to deal with the subject at all.
To distinguish this 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.
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.
Relations, 119 Kan. 12, 237 P. 1041; Stevenson v. St. Clair, 161 Minn. 444, 201 N.W. 629. See Folding Furniture Works v. Industrial Commission, 300 F. 991; People v. Successors of Laurnaga & Co., 32 P.R. 766.
Briefs amici curiae in support of the application were filed by the City of New York and the State of Illinois. Briefs on the merits supporting the New York Act were filed by the State of Ohio and by the States of Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Briefs for affirmance were filed by the New York State Hotel Association, National Woman's Party, National Association of Women Lawyers, et al.
Omitting the words in brackets, the following is the factual background in the first section of the Act before us. Adding the words in brackets and omitting these in italics, there is indicated the background in the bill that was not approved.
"The employment of [men and] women and minors in trade and industry in the State of New York at wages unreasonably low and not fairly commensurate with the value of the services rendered is a matter of grave and vital public concern. Many [men and] women and minors employed for gain in the state of New York are not as a class upon a level of equality in bargaining with their employers in regard to minimum fair wage standards, and 'freedom of contract' as applied to their relations with their employers is illusory. Since a very large percentage of such workers are obliged from their week to week wages to support themselves and others who are dependent upon them in whole or in part, they are, by reason of their necessitous circumstances, forced to accept whatever wages are offered them. Judged by any reasonable standard, wages are in many cases fixed by chance and caprice and the wages accepted are often found to bear no relation to the fair value of the service rendered. Women and minors employed for gain are peculiarly subject to the overreaching of inefficient, harsh, or ignorant employers and under unregulated competition where no adequate machinery exists for the effective regulation and maintenance of minimum fair wage standards, [and] the standards such as exist tend to be set by the least conscionable employers. In the absence of any effective minimum fair wage rates for women and minors, the constant lowering of wages by unscrupulous employers constitutes a serious form of unfair competition against other employers, reduces the purchasing power of the workers [a large proportion of the population of the state], and threatens the stability of industry. The evils of oppressive, unreasonable, and unfair wages as they affect women and minors employed in the State of New York are such as to render imperative the exercise of the police power of the state for the protection of industry and of the [men and] women and minors employed therein and of the public interest of the community at large in their health and wellbeing and in the prevention of the deterioration of the race. In the considered judgment of the legislature, this article is constitutional."
"No person . . . shall employ any female in any store, office, shop, restaurant, dining room, hotel, rooming house, laundry or manufacturing establishment at a weekly wage of less than Sixteen Dollars ($16.00) per week; a lesser amount being hereby declared inadequate to supply the necessary cost of living to any such female, to maintain her health, and to provide her with the common necessaries of life."
Laws of Arizona, 1923, c. 3, § 1.
"It shall be unlawful for any employer . . . to pay any female worker in any establishment or occupation less than the wage specified in this section, to-wit, except as hereinafter provided: all female workers who have had six months' practicable experience in any line of industry or labor shall be paid not less than one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. The minimum wage for inexperienced female workers who have not had six months' experience in any line of industry or labor shall be paid not less than one dollar per day."
§ 7108, Crawford & Moses Digest.
cannot agree that the case should be regarded as controlled by Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. 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.
First. Relator, in his petition for habeas corpus, raises no question as to the fairness of the minimum wage he was required to pay. He does not challenge the regularity of the proceedings by which the amount of that wage was determined. We must assume that none of the safeguards of the statute was ignored, and that its provisions for careful and deliberate procedure were followed in all respects. It is important at the outset to note the requirements of that procedure, as they at once dispose of any question of arbitrary procedural action.
"is both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health."
authority to conduct a comprehensive investigation. It may differentiate and classify employments in any occupation according to the nature of the service rendered. It may recommend minimum fair wage rates varying with localities. It may recommend a suitable scale of rates for learners and apprentices which may be less than those recommended for experienced women or minor workers. The wage board may take into account all relevant circumstances affecting the value of the service or class of service. It may be guided by such considerations as would guide a court in a suit for the reasonable value of services rendered. It may consider the wages paid in the state for work of like or comparable character by employers who voluntarily maintain minimum fair wage standards.
The commissioner may approve or disapprove the report of the wage board. If the commissioner disapproves, he may resubmit the matter to the same or a new board. In case the report is approved, the commissioner is to make a "directory order" which defines minimum "fair wage rates" and is to include appropriate administrative regulations. The latter may embrace regulations governing learners, apprentices, piece rates, or their relation to time rates, overtime or part-time rates, bonuses or special pay for special or extra work, deductions for board, lodging, and other items or services supplied by the employer, and other special conditions. Special licenses, authorizing employment at lower rates, may be issued to a woman or minor whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury.
may cause the name of the employer to be published. After a "directory minimum fair wage order" has been in effect for nine months, if it appears that there has been persistent nonobservance, notice may be given of the intention to make the order mandatory and of a public hearing at which all persons in favor of, or opposed to, such a mandatory order may be heard. And it is after such hearing that the commissioner may make the previous directory order or any part of it mandatory and publish it accordingly.
It is disobedience to such a mandatory order which is punished by fine or by imprisonment. It is the violation of such an order, made after the inquiries, report, the tentative order, and the hearings which the statute enjoins, that is the basis of the prosecution in the case at bar.
"The New York act, as above stated, prohibits an oppressive and unreasonable wage, which means both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health."
therefore, in fixing the fair wage is the very matter which was the basis of the congressional act."
But the court expressly recognizes that a wage is not denounced by the New York act as "oppressive and unreasonable" unless it is less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered. The statute also provides in explicit terms that the "fair wage" which is to be prescribed is one that is "fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service or class of service rendered." I find nothing in the opinion of the state court which can be taken to mean that this definite provision of the statute is not obligatory upon the authorities fixing a fair wage. Certainly, the court has not said so, and I think that we must assume that the standard thus described is set up by the New York act. And there is no suggestion that the "fair wage" as prescribed in the instant case was not commensurate with the reasonable value of the service rendered by the employees.
When the opinion of the state court goes beyond the statement of the provisions of the act, and says that the setting up of such a standard does not create a material distinction when compared with the Act of Congress in the Adkins case, the state court is not construing the state statute. It is passing upon the effect of the difference between the two acts from the standpoint of the Federal Constitution. It is putting aside an admitted difference as not controlling. It is holding, as the state court says, that "[f]orcing the payment of wages at a reasonable value does not make inapplicable the principle and ruling of the Adkins case."
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." 40 Stat. 963. 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, 269 U.S. 530, and Donham v. West-Nelson Co., 273 U.S. 657, the statutes of Arizona and Arkansas, respectively, were of a similar character, and both these cases were decided upon the authority of the Adkins 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.
pointed out, is not the value of the service rendered, but the extraneous circumstance that the employee needs to get a prescribed sum of money to insure her subsistence, health, and morals. The ethical right of every worker, man or woman, to a living wage may be conceded. One of the declared and important purposes of trade organizations is to secure it. And with that principle and with every legitimate effort to realize it in fact no one can quarrel; but the fallacy of the proposed method of attaining it is that it assumes that every employer is bound at all events to furnish it. The moral requirement implicit in every contract of employment -- viz., that the amount to be paid and the service to be rendered shall bear to each other some relation of just equivalence -- is completely ignored. . . . A statute requiring an employer to pay in money, to pay at prescribed and regular intervals, to pay the value of the services rendered, even to pay with fair relation to the extent of the benefit obtained from the service, would be understandable. But a statute which prescribes payment without regard to any of these things, and solely with relation to circumstances apart from the contract of employment, the business affected by it, and the work done under it, is so clearly the product of a naked, arbitrary exercise of power that it cannot be allowed to stand under the Constitution of the United States."
maintaining the validity of the federal statute, despite the nature of the standard it set up, brings out in stronger relief the ground which was taken most emphatically by the majority in that case, and that there would have been a majority for the decision in the absence of that ground must be a matter of conjecture. With that ground absent, the Adkins case ceases to be a precise authority.
We have here a question of constitutional law of grave importance, applying to the statutes of several states in a matter of profound public interest. I think that we should deal with that question upon its merits, without feeling that we are bound by a decision which, on its facts, is not strictly in point.
"does not challenge these findings of fact by the Legislature, nor does he challenge the statements in the 'factual brief' submitted by the respondent to sustain and amplify these findings."
The majority opinion in the Court of Appeals has nothing to the contrary. Nor is the statement of the conditions which influenced the legislative action challenged, or challengeable, upon the record here. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 220 U. S. 78-80; Radice v. New York, 264 U. S. 292, 264 U. S. 294; Ohio ex rel. Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392, 274 U. S. 397; O'Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co., 282 U. S. 251, 282 U. S. 257-258; Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502, 291 U. S. 530; Borden's Farm Products Co. v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 194, 293 U. S. 209.
"for the protection of industry and of the women and minors employed therein and of the public interest of the community at large in their health and wellbeing and in the prevention of the deterioration of the race."
identical work as to indicate that no relationship exists between the value of the services rendered and the wages paid. It also appears that working women are largely unorganized, and that their bargaining power is relatively weak. The seriousness of the social problem is presented. Inquiries by the New York State Department of Labor in cooperation with the Emergency Relief Bureau of New York City disclosed the large number of women employed in industry whose wages were insufficient for the support of themselves and those dependent upon them. For that reason, they had been accepted for relief, and their wages were being supplemented by payments from the Emergency Relief Bureau. Thus, the failure of overreaching employers to pay to women the wages commensurate with the value of services rendered has imposed a direct and heavy burden upon the taxpayers. The weight of this burden and the necessity for taking reasonable measures to reduce it, in the light of the enormous annual budgetary appropriation for the Department of Public Welfare of New York City, is strikingly exhibited in the brief filed by the corporation counsel of the City as an amicus curiae.
Fifth. 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.
"There is no absolute freedom to do as one wills or to contract as one chooses. . . . Liberty implies the absence of arbitrary restraint, not immunity from reasonable regulations and prohibitions imposed in the interests of the community."
supra). The test of validity is not artificial. It is whether the limitation upon the freedom of contract is arbitrary and capricious, or one reasonably required in order appropriately to serve the public interest in the light of the particular conditions to which the power is addressed.
When there are conditions which specially touch the health and wellbeing 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.
largely in the power of the state."
"properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained, even when like legislation is not necessary for men, and could not be sustained."
Muller v. Oregon, supra, pp. 208 U. S. 421-422. This ruling has been followed in Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671, Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373, and Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U. S. 385, with respect to hours of work, and in Radice v. New York, supra, in relation to night work.
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.
While I agree with all that the CHIEF JUSTICE has said, I would not make the differences between the present statute and that involved in the Adkins case the sole basis of decision. I attach little importance to the fact that the earlier statute was aimed only at a starvation wage, and that the present one does not prohibit such a wage unless it is also less than the reasonable value of the service. Since neither statute compels employment at any wage, I do not assume that employer in one case, more than in the other, would pay the minimum wage if the service were worth less.
The vague and general pronouncement of the Fourteenth Amendment against deprivation of liberty without due process of law is a limitation of legislative power, not a formula for its exercise. It does not purport to say in what particular manner that power shall be exerted.
It makes no finespun distinctions between methods which the legislature may and which it may not choose to solve a pressing problem of government. It is plain too, that, unless the language of the amendment and the decisions of this Court are to be ignored, the liberty which the amendment protects is not freedom from restraint of all law or of any law which reasonable men may think an appropriate means for dealing with any of those matters of public concern with which it is the business of government to deal. There is grim irony in speaking of the freedom of contract of those who, because of their economic necessities, give their service for less than is needful to keep body and soul together. But if this is freedom of contract, no one has ever denied that it is freedom which may be restrained, notwithstanding the Fourteenth Amendment, by a statute passed in the public interest.
York, 291 U. S. 502. See also Frisbie v. United States, 157 U. S. 160; Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13; McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539; Mutual Loan Co. v. Martell, 222 U. S. 225.
No one doubts that the presence in the community of a large number of those compelled by economic necessity to accept a wage less than is needful for subsistence is a matter of grave public concern, the more so when, as has been demonstrated here, it tends to produce ill health, immorality, and deterioration of the race. The fact that, at one time or another, Congress and the legislatures of seventeen States, and the legislative bodies of twenty-one foreign countries, including Great Britain and its four commonwealths, have found that wage regulation is an appropriate corrective for serious social and economic maladjustments growing out of inequality in bargaining power precludes, for me, any assumption that it is a remedy beyond the bounds of reason. It is difficult to imagine any grounds, other than our own personal economic predilections, for saying that the contract of employment is any the less an appropriate subject of legislation than are scores of others in dealing with which this Court has held that legislatures may curtail individual freedom in the public interest.
If it is a subject upon which there is power to legislate at all, the Fourteenth Amendment makes no distinction between the methods by which legislatures may deal with it, any more than it proscribes the regulation of one term of a bargain more than another if it is properly the subject of regulation. No one has yet attempted to say upon what basis of history, principles of government, law, or logic, it is within due process to regulate the hours and conditions of labor of women, see Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412; Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671, 232 U. S. 679; Hawley v. Walker, 232 U.S. 718; Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373; Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U.S.
385, and of men, Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U. S. 426, and the time and manner of payment of the wage, McLean v. Arkansas, supra; Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, supra; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169; compare New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188; Arizona Employers' Liability Cases, 250 U. S. 400, but that regulation of the amount of the wage passes beyond the constitutional limitation; or to say upon what theory the amount of a wage is any the less the subject of regulation in the public interest than that of insurance premiums, German Alliance Insurance Co. v. Lewis, supra, or of the commissions of insurance brokers, O'Gorman & Young, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 282 U. S. 251, or of the charges of grain elevators, Munn v. Illinois, supra; Brass v. Stoeser, supra, or of the price which the farmer receives for his milk, or which the wage earner pays for it, Nebbia v. New York, supra.
"So far as the requirement of due process is concerned, and in the absence of other constitutional restriction, a state is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose.
The courts are without authority either to declare such policy, or, when it is declared by the legislature, to override it. If the laws passed are seen to have a reasonable relation to a proper legislative purpose, and are neither arbitrary nor discriminatory, the requirements of due process are satisfied, and judicial determination to that effect renders a court functus officio."
That declaration and decision should control the present case. They are irreconcilable with the decision and most that was said in the Adkins case. They have left the Court free of its restriction as a precedent, and free to declare that the choice of the particular form of regulation by which grave economic maladjustments are to be remedied is for legislatures, and not the courts.
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; today they are the burden of the nation. I can perceive no more objection, on constitutional grounds, to their solution by requiring an industry to bear the subsistence cost of the labor which it employs, than to the imposition upon it of the cost of its industrial accidents. See New York Central R. Co. v. White, supra; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219.
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.
"the circumstances prevailing under which the New York law was enacted call for a reconsideration of the Adkins case in the light of the New York act and conditions aimed to be remedied thereby."
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.

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