Court Opinion

ID: 9418272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:18:15.282366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:59.652089
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
with whom Mr. Justice Hughes concurs,
dissenting:
The character of the question here involved sufficiently justifies, in my opinion, a statement of the grounds which impel me to dissent from the opinion and judgment in this case. The importance of the decision is further emphasized by the fact that it results not only in invalidating the legislation of Kansas, now before the court, but necessarily decrees the same fate to like legislation of other States of the Union.1 This far-reaching result is attained because the statute is declared to be an infraction *28of the constitutional protection afforded under the Four^ teenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The right of contract, it is said, is part of the liberty of the citizen, and to abridge it, as is done in this case, is declared to be beyond the legislative authority of the State.
That the right of contract is a part of individual freedom within the protection of this amendment, and may not be arbitrarily interfered with, is conceded. While this is true, nothing is better settled by the repeated decisions of this court than that the right of contract is not absolute and unyielding, but is subject to limitation and restraint in the interest of the public health, safety and welfare, and such limitations may be declared in legislation of the State. It would unduly extend what I purpose to say in this case to refer to all the cases in which this doctrine has been declared. One of them is: Frisbie v. United States, 157 U. S. 160, 165. In that case, it was declared, and in varying form has been repeated many times since:
"While it may be conceded that, generally speaking, among the inalienable rights of the citizen is that of the liberty of contract, yet such liberty is not absolute and universal. It is within the undoubted power of government to restrain some individuals from all contracts, as well as all individuals from some contracts. It may deny to all the right to contract for the purchase or sale of lottery tickets; to the minor the right to assume any obligations, except for the necessaries of existence; to the common carrier the power to make any contract releasing himself from negligence, and, indeed, may restrain all engaged in any employment from any contract in the course of that employment which is against public policy. The possession of this power by government in no manner conflicts with the proposition that, generally *29speaking, every citizen has a right freely to contract for the price of his labor, services, or property.”
See also Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 391) Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207; Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, 421; McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549; Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186, 202; Erie Railroad v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685, 699. The Erie Railroad Case is a very recent deliverance of this court upon the subject, wherein it was declared:
. “But liberty of making contracts is subject to conditions in the interest of the public welfare, and which shall prevail — principle or condition — cannot be defined by any precise and universal formula. Each instance of asserted conflict must be determined by itself, and it has been said many times that each act of legislation has the support of the presumption that it is an exercise in the interest of the public. The burden is on him who attacks the legislation, and it is not sustained by declaring a liberty of contract.' It can only be sustained by demonstrating that it conflicts with some constitutional restraint or that the public welfare is not subserved by the legislation. The legislature is, in the first instance, the judge of what is necessary for the public welfare, and a judicial review of its judgment is limited. The earnest conflict of serious opinion does not suffice to bring it within the range of judicial cognizance. C., B. & Q. R. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 565; German Alliance Insurance Co. v. Kansas, 233 U. S. 389.”
It is therefore the thoroughly established doctrine of this court that liberty of contract may be circumscribed in the interest of the State and the welfare of its people. Whether a given exercise of such authority transcends the limits of legislative authority must be determined in each case as it arises. The preservation of the police power of the States, under the authority of which that *30great mass of legislation has been enacted which has for its purpose the promotion of the health, safety and welfare of the public, is of the utmost importance. This power was not surrendered by the States when the Federal Constitution was adopted, nor taken from them when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified and became a part of the fundamental law of the Union. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27.
Of the necessity of such legislation, the local legislature is itself the judge, and its enactments are only to be set aside when they involve such palpable abuse of power and lack of reasonableness to accomplish a lawful end that they may be said to be merely arbitrary and capricious, and hence out of place in a government of laws and not of men, and irreconcilable with the conception of due process of law. McGehee on “Due Process of Law,” page 306, and cases from this court therein cited.
By this it is not meant that the legislative power is beyond judicial review. Such enactments as are arbitrary or unreasonable and thus exceed the exercise of legislative authority in good faith, may be declared invalid when brought in review by proper judicial proceedings. This is necessary to the assertion and maintenance of the supremacy of the Constitution.
Conceding then that .the right of contract is a subject of judicial protection, within the authority given by the Constitution of the United States, the question here is, was the power of the State so arbitrarily exercised as to render its action unconstitutional and therefore void? It is said that this question is authoritatively determined in this court, in the case of Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161. In that case, a statute passed by the Congress of the United States, under supposed sanction of the power to regulate interstate commerce, was before this court, and.it was there decided that the right of contract protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, *31providing that no person shall be deprived of life, 'liberty or property without due process of law, avoided a statute which undertook to make it a crime to discharge an em-ployé simply because of his membership in a labor organization. The feature of the statute which is.here involved, making it an offense to require any employé, or any person seeking employment, as a condition of such employment, to enter into an agreement, either written or verbal, not to become a member of any labor corporation, association or organization, — a provision exactly similar to that of the Kansas statute now under consideration, — was not before the court upon the charge made or the facts shown, and this provision was neither considered nor decided upon in reaching the conclusion that an employer could not be made a criminal because he discharged an employé simply because of his membership in a labor organization. In the course of the opinion this fact was more than once stated, and the question before the court declared to be (208 U. S., p. 171):
"May Congress make it a criminal offense against the United States — as by the tenth section of the act of 1898 it does — for an agent or officer of an interstate carrier, having full authority in the premises from the carrier, to discharge an employé from service simply because of his membership in a labor organization?”
Such was the question before the court, and that there might be no mistake about it, at the close of the opinion, the part of the act upon which the defendant in that case was convicted was declared to be separable from the other parts of the act, and that feature of the statute the only subject of decision. Mr. Justice Harlan, concluding the opinion of the court said (p. 180):
“We add that since the part of the act of 1898 upon which the first count of the indictment is based, and upon which alone the defendant was convicted, is severable from its other parts, and as what has been said is sufficient to *32dispose of the present case, we are not called upon to consider other and independent provisions of the act, such, for instance, as the provisions relating to arbitration. This decision is therefore restricted to the question of the validity of the particular provision in the act of Congress making it a crime against the United States for an agent or officer of an interstate carrier to discharge an employé from its service because of his being a member of a labor organization” (Italics mine.)
In view of the feature of the statute involved, the charge made, and this express reservation in the opinion of the court as to other features of the statute, I am unable to agree that that case involved or decided the one now at bar.
There is nothing in the statute now under consideration which prevents an employer from discharging one in his service at his will. The question now presented is, May an employer, as a condition of present or future employment, require an employé to agree that he will, not exercise the privilege of becoming a member of a labor union, should he see fit to do so? In my opinion, the cases are entirely different, and the decision of the questions controlled by different principles. The right to join labor unions is undisputed, and has been the subject of frequent affirmation in judicial opinions. Acting within their legal rights, such associations are as legitimate as any organization of citizens formed to promote their common interest. They are organized under the laws of many States, by virtue of express statutes passed for that purpose, and, being legal, and acting within their constitutional rights, the right to join them, as against coercive action to the contrary may be the legitimate subject of protection in the exercise of the police authority of the States. This statute, passed in the exercise of that particular authority called the police power, the limitations of which no court has yet undertaken precisely to define, has for its avowed *33purpose the protection of the exercise of a legal right, by-preventing an employer from depriving the employé of . it as a condition of obtaining employment. I see no reason why a State may not, if it chooses, protect this right, as well as other legal rights.
But it is said that the contrary must necessarily result, if not from the precise matter decided in the Adair Case, then from the principles therein laid down, and that it is' the logical result of that decision that the employer may, as a condition of employment, require an obligation to forego the exercise of any privileges because of the exercise of which an employé might be discharged from service. I do not concede that this result follows from anything decided in the Adair Case. That case dealt solely with the right of an employer to terminate relations of employment with an employé, and involved the constitutional protection of his right so to do, but did not deal with the conditions which he might exact or impose upon another as a condition of employment.
The act under consideration is said to have the effect to deprive employers of a part of their liberty of contract, for the benefit of labor organizations. It is urged that the statute has no object or purpose, express or implied, that has reference'to health, safety, morals, or public'welfare, beyond the supposed desirability of leveling inequalities of fortune by depriving him who has property of some part of his “financial independence.”
But this argument admits that financial independence is not independence of law or of the authority of the legislature to declare the policy of the State as to matters which have a reasonable relation to the welfare, peace and security of the community.
This court has many times decided that the motives of legislators in the enactment of laws are not the subject of judicial inquiry. Legislators, state and Federal, áre entitled to the presumption that- their action has been in *34good faith and because of conditions which they deem proper and sufficient to warrant the action taken. Speaking for this court in Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514, Chief Justice Chase summed up the doctrine in a sentence when he said: “We are not at liberty to inquire into the motives of the legislature. We can only examine into its power under the Constitution.” In Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 7th Ed., 257, that eminent author says: “They [the courts] must assume that legislative discretion has been properly exercised. If evidence was required, it must be supposed that it was before the legislature when the act was passed; and if any special finding was required to warrant the passage of the particular act, it would seem that the passage of the act itself might be held equivalent to such finding.” “The rule is general with reference to the enactments of all legislative bodies that the courts cannot inquire into the motives of the legislators in,passing them, except as they may be disclosed on the face of the acts, or inferable from their operation, considered with reference to the condition of the country and existing legislation.' The motives of the legislators, considered as the purposes they had in view, will always be presumed to be to accomplish that which follows as the natural and reasonable effect of their enactments. Their motives, considered as the moral inducements for their votes, will vary with the different members of the legislative body. The diverse character of such motives, and the impossibility of penetrating into the hearts of men and ascertaining the truth, precludes all such inquiries as impracticable and futile.” Soon Ring v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, 710. “We must assume that the legislature acts according to its judgment for the best interests of the State. A wrong intent cannot be imputed to it.” Florida Central &c. R. R. v. Reynolds, 183 U. S. 471, 480.
The act must be taken as an attempt of the legislature •to enact a statute which it deemed necessary to the good *35order and security of society. It imposes a penalty for “coercing or influencing or making demands upon or requirements of employés, servants, laborers, and persons seeking employment.” It was in the light of this avowed purpose that the act was interpreted by the Supreme Court of Kansas, the ultimate authority upon the meaning of the terms of the law. Of course, if the act is necessarily arbitrary and therefore unconstitutional, mere declarations of good intent cannot save it, but it must be presumed to have been passed by the legislative branch of the state government in good faith, and for the purpose of reaching the desired end. The legislature may have believed, acting upon conditions known to it, that the public welfare would be promoted by the enactment of a statute which should prevent the compulsory exaction of written agreements to forego the acknowledged legal right here involved, as a condition of employment in one’s trade or occupation.
It would be impossible to maintain that because one is free to accept or refuse a given -employment, or because one may at will employ or refuse to employ another, it follows that the parties have a constitutional right to insert in an agreement of employment any stipulation they choose. They cannot put in terms that are against public policy either as it is deemed by the courts to exist at common law or as it may be declared by the legislature as the arbiter within the limits of reason of the public policy of the State.. It is no answer to say that the greater includes the less and that because the employer is free to employ, or the employé' to refuse employment, they may agree as they please. This matter is easily tested by assuming a contract of employment for a year and the insertion of a condition upon which the right of employment should continue. The choice of such conditions is not to be regarded as wholly unrestricted because the parties may agree or not as they choose. And if the.State may pro*36hibit a particular stipulation in an agreement because it is deemed to be opposed in its operation to the security and well being of the community, it may prohibit it in any agreement whether the employment is for a term or at will. It may prohibit the attempt in any way to bind one to the objectionable undertaking.
Would anyone contend that the State might not prohibit the imposition of conditions which should require an agreement to forego the right on the part of the employe to resort to the courts of the country for redress in the case of disagreement with his employer? While the em-ployé might be discharged in case he brought suit against an employer if the latter so willed, it by no means follows that he could be required, as a condition of employment, to forego a right so obviously fundamental as the one supposed. It is therefore misleading to say that the right of discharge necessarily embraces the right to impose conditions of employment which shall include the surrender of rights which it is the policy of the State to maintain.
Take another illustration: The right to exclude a foreign corporation from carrying on a purely domestic business in the State has been distinctly recognized by decisions of this court; yet it has been held, and is now settled law, that it is beyond the authority of the State to require a corporation doing business of this character.to file in the office of the Secretary of State a written agreement that it will not remove a suit, otherwise removable, to a Federal court of the United States. Insurance Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445. In that case, the right to exclude was held not to include the right to impose any condition under which the corporation might do business in the State. In that connection this court said,:
“A man may not barter away his life or his freedom, or his substantial rights. In a criminal case, he cannot, as was held in Cancemi’s Case, be tried in any other manner than by a jury of twelve men, although he consent in open *37court to be tried by a jury of eleven men. In a civil case he may submit his particular suit by his own consent to an arbitration, or to the decision of a single judge. So he may omit to exercise his right to remove his suit to a Federal tribunal, as often as he thinks fit, in each recurring case. In these aspects any citizen may no doubt waive the rights to which he may be entitled. He cannot, however, bind, himself in advance by an agreement, which may be specifically enforced, thus to forfeit his .rights at all times and on all occasions, whenever the case may be presented.” Insurance Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445, 451.
It may be that an employer may be of the opinion that membership of his employes in the National Guard, by enlistment in the militia of the State, may be detrimental to his business. Can it be successfully contended that the State may not, in the public interest, prohibit an agreement to forego such enlistment as against public policy? Would it be beyond a legitimate exercise of the police power to provide that an employé should not be required to agree, as a condition of employment, to forego affiliation with a particular political party, or the support of a particular candidate for office? It seems to me that these questions answer themselves. There is a real and hot a fanciful distinction between the exercise of the right to discharge at will and the imposition of a requirement that the employé, as a condition of employment, shall make a particular agreement to forego a legal right. The agreement may be, or may be declared to be, against public policy, although the right of discharge remains. When a man is discharged, the employer exercises his right to declare such action necessary because of the exigencies of his business, or as the result of his judgment for other reasons sufficient to himself. When he makes a stipulation of the character here involved essential to future employment, he is not exercising a right to discharge, and may not wish to discharge the employé when, at a *38subsequent time, the prohibited act is done. What is in fact accomplished, is that the one engaging to work, who may wish to preserve an independent right of action, as a condition of employment, is coerced to the signing of such an agreement against his will, perhaps impelled by the necessities of his situation. The State, within constitutional limitations, is the judge of its own policy and may execute it in the exercise of the legislative authority.. This statute reaches not only the employed but as well .one seeking employment. The latter may never wish to join a labor union. By signing such agreements as are here involved he is deprived of the right of free choice as to his future conduct, and must choose between employment and the right to act in the future as the exigencies of his situation may demand. It is such contracts, having such effect, that this statute and similar ones seek to prohibit and punish as against the policy of the State.
It is constantly emphasized that the case presented is not one of coercion. But in view of the relative positions of employer and employed, who is to deny that the stipulation here insisted upon and forbidden by the law is essentially coercive? No form of words can strip it of its true charactér. Whatever our individual opinions may be as to the wisdom of such legislation, we cannot put our judgment in place of that of the legislature and refuse to acknowledge the existence of the conditions with which it was dealing. Opinions may differ as to the remedy, but we cannot understand' upon what ground it can be said that a subject so intimately related to the welfare of society is removed from the legislative power. Wherein is the right of the employer to insert this stipulation in the agreement any more sacred than his right to agree with another employer in the same trade to keep up prices? He may think it quite as essential to his “financial independence” and so in truth it may be if he alone is to be considered. But it is too late to deny that the legis*39lative power reaches such a case. It would be difficult to select any subject more intimately related to good order and the security of the community than that under consideration — whether one takes the view that labor organizations are advantageous or the reverse. It is certainly as much a matter for legislative consideration and action as contracts in restraint of trade.
It is urged that a labor organization — a voluntary association of working-men — has the constitutional right to deny membership to any man who will not agree that during such membership he will not accept or retain employment in company with non-union men. And it is asserted that there cannot be one rule of liberty for the labor organization and its members and a different and more restrictive rule for employers.
It of course is true, for example, that a Church may deny membership'to those who unite with other denominations, but it by no means follows that the State may not constitutionally prohibit a railroad company from compelling a working-man to agree that he- will, or will not, join a particular church. An analogous case, — viewed from the employer’s standpoint, would be: Can the State, in the exercise of its legislative power, reach concerted effort of employés intended to coerce the employer as a condition of hiring labor that he shall engage in writing to give up his privilege of association with other employers in legal organizations, corporate or otherwise, having for their object a united effort to promote by legal means that which employers believe to be for the best interest of their business?
I entirely agree that there should be the same rule for employers and employed, and the same liberty of action for each. In my judgment, the law may prohibit coercive attempts, such as are here involved, to deprive either of the free right of exercising privileges which are theirs within the law. So far as I know, no law has undertaken *40to abridge the right of employers of labor in the exercise of free choice as to what organizations they will form for the promotion of thdir common interests, or denying to them free right of action in such matters.
But it is said that in this case all that was done in effect was to discharge an employé for a cause deemed sufficient to the employer — a right inherent in the personal liberty of the employer protected by the Constitution. This argument loses sight of the real purpose and effect of this and kindred statutes. The penalty imposed is not for the discharge but for the attempt to coerce an unwilling em-ployé to agree to forego the exercise of the legal right involved as a condition of employment. It is the requirement of such agreements which the State declares to be against public policy.
I think that the act now under consideration, and kindred ones, are intended to promote the same liberty of action for the employé as the employer confessedly enjoys. The law should be as zealous to protect the constitutional liberty of the employé as it is to guard that of the employer. A principal object of this' statute is to protect the liberty of the citizen to make such lawful affiliations as he may desire with organizations of his choice. It should not be necessary to the protection of the liberty of one citizen that the same right in another citizen be abridged or destroyed'.
If one prohibitive condition of the sort here involved may be attached, so may others, until .employment can only be had as the result of written stipulations, which shall deprive the employé of the exercise of legal rights which are within the authority of the State to protect. While this court should, within the limitations of the constitutional guaranty, protect the free right of contract, it is not less important that the State be given the right to exert its legislative authority, if it deems best to do so, for the protection of rights which inhere in the privileges of the citizen of every free country.
*41The Supreme Court of Kansas in sustaining this statute, said that “employés as a rule are not financially able to' be as independent in making contracts for the sale of their labor as are employers in making a contract of purchase thereof,” and in reply to this it is suggested that the law cannot remedy inequalities of fortune, and that so long as the right of property exists, it may happen that parties negotiating may not be equally unhampered by circumstances.
This view of the Kansas court, as to the legitimacy of such considerations, is in entire harmony, as I understand it, with the former decisions of this court in considering the right of state legislatures to enact laws which shall prevent the undue or oppressive exercise of authority in making contracts with employés. In Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, this court considering legislation limiting the number of hours during which laborers might be employed in a particular employment, said:
“The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the experience of legislators in many States has corroborated, that the proprietors of these establishments and their operatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their interests are, to a certain extent, conflicting. The former naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from their employés, while the latter are often induced by the fear of discharge to conform to regulations which their judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce to be detrimental to their health or strength. In other words, the proprietors lay down the rules and the laborers are practically constrained to obey them. In such cases self-interest is often an unsafe guide, and the legislature may properly interpose its authority. . . . But the fact that both parties are of full age and competent to contract does not necessarily deprive the State of the power to interfere where the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the public health demands that one party to *42the contract shall be protected against himself. 'The State still retains an interest in his welfare, however reckless he may be. The whole is no greater' than the sum of all the parts, and when the individual health, safety and welfare are sacrificed or neglected, the State must suffer.’ ” (Page 397.)
This language was quoted with approval in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 570, in which a statute of Iowa was sustained, prohibiting contracts limiting liability for injuries made in advance of the injuries received, and providing that the subsequent acceptance of benefits under such contracts should not constitute satisfaction for injuries received after the contract. Certainly it can be no substantial objection to the'exercise of the police power that the legislature has taken into consideration the necessities, the comparative ability, and the relative situation of the contracting parties. While all stand equal before the law, and are alike entitled to its protection, it ought not to be a reasonable objection that one motive which impelled an enactment was to protect those who might otherwise be unable to protect themselves.
I therefore think that the statute of Kansas, sustained by the Supreme Court of the State, did not go beyond a legitimate exercise of the police power, when it sought, not to require one man to employ another against his will, but to put limitations upon the sacrifice of rights which one man may exact from another as a condition of employment. Entertaining these views, I am constrained to dissent from the judgment in this case.
I am permitted to say that Mr. Justice Hughes concurs in this dissent.

 Statutes like the Kansas statute have been passed in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Porto Rico, and Wisconsin. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics No. 148, Volumes 1 and 2; Labor Laws of the United States.