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ERROR TO
THE COUNTY COURT OF ONEIDA COUNTY, STATE OF NEW YORK |
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Syllabus |
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The
general right to make a contract in relation to his business is part of
the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and this includes the
right to purchase and sell labor, except as controlled by the State in
the legitimate exercise of its police power.
Liberty of contract relating to labor includes
both parties to it; the one has as much right to purchase as the other
to sell labor.
There is no reasonable ground, on the score of
health, for interfering with the liberty of the person or the right of
free contract, by determining the hours of labor, in the occupation of a
baker. Nor can a law limiting such hours be justified a a health law to
safeguard the public health, or the health of the individuals following
that occupation.
Section 110 of the labor law of the State of New
York, providing that no employes shall be required or permitted to work
in bakeries more than sixty hours in a week, or ten hours a day, is not
a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State, but an
unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and
liberty of the individual to contract in relation to labor, and, as
such, it is in conflict with, and void under, the Federal Constitution.
This is a writ of error to the County Court of Oneida County, in the
State of New York (to which court the record had been remitted), to
review the judgment of the Court of Appeal of that State affirming the
judgment of the Supreme Court, which itself affirmed the judgment of the
County Court, convicting the defendant of a misdemeanor on an indictment
under a statute of that State, known, by its short title, as the labor
law. The section of the statute under which the indictment was found is
section 110, and is reproduced in the margin, [*] (together with the
other sections of the labor law upon the subject of bakeries, being
sections 111 to 115, both inclusive). The indictment averred that the
defendant
wrongfully and unlawfully required and permitted an employee working
for him in his biscuit, bread and cake bakery and confectionery
establishment, at the city of Utica, in this county, to work more than
sixty hours in one week,
after having been theretofore convicted of a violation of the same act,
and therefore, as averred, he committed the crime or misdemeanor, second
offense. The plaintiff in error demurred to the indictment on several
grounds, one of which was that the facts stated did not constitute a
crime. The demurrer was overruled, and the plaintiff in error having
refused to plead further, a plea of not guilty was entered by order of
the court and the trial commenced, and he was convicted of misdemeanor,
second offense, as indicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and to
stand committed until paid, not to exceed fifty days in the Oneida
County jail. A certificate of reasonable doubt was granted by the county
judge of Oneida County, whereon an appeal was taken to the Appellate
Division of the Supreme Court, Fourth Department, where the judgment of
conviction was affirmed. 73 App.Div.N.Y. 120. A further appeal was then
taken to the Court of Appeals, where the judgment of conviction was
again affirmed. 177 N.Y. 145. | |
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Opinions
PECKHAM, J.,
Opinion of the Court
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MR.
JUSTICE PECKHAM, after making the foregoing statement of the facts,
delivered the opinion of the court.
The indictment, it will be seen, charges that the
plaintiff in error violated the one hundred and tenth section of article
8, chapter 415, of the Laws of 1897, known as the labor law of the State
of New York, in that he wrongfully and unlawfully required and permitted
an employee working for him to work more than sixty hours in one week.
There is nothing in any of the opinions delivered in this case, either
in the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals of the State, which
construes the section, in using the word "required," as
referring to any physical force being used to obtain the labor of an
employee. It is assumed that the word means nothing more than the
requirement arising from voluntary contract for such labor in excess of
the number of hours specified in the statute. There is no pretense in
any of the opinions that the statute was intended to meet a case of
involuntary labor in any form. All the opinions assume that there is no
real distinction, so far as this question is concerned, between the
words "required" and "permitted." The mandate of the
statute that "no employee shall be required or permitted to work,"
is the substantial equivalent of an enactment that "no employee
shall contract or agree to work," more than ten hours per day, and,
as there is no provision for special emergencies, the statute is
mandatory in all cases. It is not an act merely fixing the number of
hours which shall constitute a legal day's work, but an absolute
prohibition upon the employer's permitting, under any circumstances,
more than ten hours' work to be done in his establishment. The employee
may desire to earn the extra money which would arise from his working
more than the prescribed time, but this statute forbids the employer
from permitting the employee to earn it.
The statute necessarily interferes with the right
of contract between the employer and employes concerning the number of
hours in which the latter may labor in the bakery of the employer. The
general right to make a contract in relation to his business is part of
the liberty of the individual protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of
the Federal Constitution. Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578.
Under that provision, no State can deprive any person of life, liberty
or property without due process of law. The right to purchase or to sell
labor is part of the liberty protected by this amendment unless there
are circumstances which exclude the right. There are, however, certain
powers, existing in the sovereignty of each State in the Union, somewhat
vaguely termed police powers, the exact description and limitation of
which have not been attempted by the courts. Those powers, broadly
stated and without, at present, any attempt at a more specific
limitation, relate to the safety, health, morals and general welfare of
the public. Both property and liberty are held on such reasonable
conditions as may be imposed by the governing power of the State in the
exercise of those powers, and with such conditions the Fourteenth
Amendment was not designed to interfere. Mugler v. Kansas,
123 U.S. 623; In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436; Crowley v.
Christensen, 137 U.S. 86; In re Converse, 137 U.S. 624.
The State therefore has power to prevent the
individual from making certain kinds of contracts, and, in regard to
them, the Federal Constitution offers no protection. If the contract be
one which the State, in the legitimate exercise of its police power, has
the right to prohibit, it is not prevented from prohibiting it by the
Fourteenth Amendment. Contracts in violation of a statute, either of the
Federal or state government, or a contract to let one's property for
immoral purposes, or to do any other unlawful act, could obtain no
protection from the Federal Constitution as coming under the liberty of
person or of free contract. Therefore, when the State, by its
legislature, in the assumed exercise of its police powers, has passed an
act which seriously limits the right to labor or the right of contract
in regard to their means of livelihood between persons who are sui
juris (both employer and employee), it becomes of great importance
to determine which shall prevail -- the right of the individual to labor
for such time as he may choose or the right of the State to prevent the
individual from laboring or from entering into any contract to labor
beyond a certain time prescribed by the State.
This court has recognized the existence and
upheld the exercise of the police powers of the States in many cases
which might fairly be considered as border ones, and it has, in
the course of its determination of questions regarding the asserted
invalidity of such statutes on the ground of their violation of the
rights secured by the Federal Constitution, been guided by rules of a
very liberal nature, the application of which has resulted, in numerous
instances, in upholding the validity of state statutes thus assailed.
Among the later cases where the state law has been upheld by this court
is that of Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 . A provision in the
act of the legislature of Utah was there under consideration, the act
limiting the employment of workmen in all underground mines or workings
to eight hours per day "except in cases of emergency, where life or
property is in imminent danger." It also limited the hours of labor
in smelting and other institutions for the reduction or refining of ores
or metals to eight hours per day except in like cases of emergency. The
act was held to be a valid exercise of the police powers of the State. A
review of many of the cases on the subject, decided by this and other
courts, is given in the opinion. It was held that
the kind of employment, mining, smelting, etc., and the character of the
employes in such kinds of labor, were such as to make it reasonable and
proper for the State to interfere to prevent the employees from being
constrained by the rules laid down by the proprietors in regard to
labor. The following citation from the observations of the Supreme Court
of Utah in that case was made by the judge writing the opinion of this
court, and approved:
The law in question is confined to the protection
of that class of people engaged in labor in underground mines and in
smelters and other works wherein ores are reduced and refined. This law
applies only to the classes subjected by their employment to the
peculiar conditions and effects attending underground mining and work in
smelters and other works for the reduction and refining of ores.
Therefore it is not necessary to discuss or decide whether the
legislature can fix the hours of labor in other employments.
It will be observed that, even with regard to that class of labor, the
Utah statute provided for cases of emergency wherein the provisions of
the statute would not apply. The statute now before this court has no
emergency clause in it, and, if the statute is valid, there are no
circumstances and no emergencies under which the slightest violation of
the provisions of the act would be innocent. There is nothing in Holden
v. Hardy which covers the case now before us. Nor does Atkin v.
Kansas, 191 U.S. 207, touch the case at bar. The Atkin case was
decided upon the right of the State to control its municipal
corporations and to prescribe the condition upon which it will permit
work of a public character to be done for a municipality. Knoxville
Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U.S. 13, is equally far from an authority
for this legislation. The employees in that case were held to be at a
disadvantage with the employer in matters of wages, they being miners
and coal workers, and the act simply provided for the cashing of coal
orders when presented by the miner to the employer. The latest case
decided by this court involving the police power is that of Jacobson
v. Massachusetts, decided at this term and reported in 197 U.S. 11.
It related to compulsory vaccination, and the law was held valid as a
proper exercise of the police powers with reference to the public
health. It was stated in the opinion that it was a case
of an adult who, for aught that appears, was himself in perfect health
and a fit subject for vaccination, and yet, while remaining in the
community, refused to obey the statute and the regulation adopted in
execution of its provisions for the protection of the public health and
the public safety, confessedly endangered by the presence of a dangerous
disease.
That case is also far from covering the one now before the court.
Petit v. Minnesota, 177 U.S. 164, was upheld as a proper
exercise of the police power relating to the observance of Sunday, and
the case held that the legislature had the right to declare that, as
matter of law, keeping barber shops open on Sunday was not a work of
necessity or charity.
It must, of course, be conceded that there is a
limit to the valid exercise of the police power by the State. There is
no dispute concerning this general proposition. Otherwise the Fourteenth
Amendment would have no efficacy, and the legislatures of the States
would have unbounded power, and it would be enough to say that any piece
of legislation was enacted to conserve the morals, the health or the
safety of the people; such legislation would be valid no matter how
absolutely without foundation the claim might be. The claim of the
police power would be a mere pretext -- become another and delusive name
for the supreme sovereignty of the State to be exercised free from
constitutional restraint. This is not contended for. In every case that
comes before this court, therefore, where legislation of this character
is concerned and where the protection of the Federal Constitution is
sought, the question necessarily arises: is this a fair, reasonable and
appropriate exercise of the police power of the State, or is it an
unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right of
the individual to his personal liberty or to enter into those contracts
in relation to labor which may seem to him appropriate or necessary for
the support of himself and his family? Of course, the liberty of
contract relating to labor includes both parties to it. The one has as
much right to purchase as the other to sell labor.
This is not a question of substituting the
judgment of the court for that of the legislature. If the act be within
the power of the State, it is valid although the judgment of the court
might be totally opposed to the enactment of such a law. But the
question would still remain: is it within the police power of the
State?, and that question must be answered by the court.
The question whether this act is valid as a labor
law, pure and simple, may be dismissed in a few words. There is no
reasonable ground for interfering with the liberty of person or the
right of free contract by determining the hours of labor in the
occupation of a baker. There is no contention that bakers as a class are
not equal in intelligence and capacity to men in other trades or manual
occupations, or that they are able to assert their rights and care for
themselves without the protecting arm of the State, interfering with
their independence of judgment and of action. They are in no sense wards
of the State. Viewed in the light of a purely labor law, with no
reference whatever to the question of health, we think that a law like
the one before us involves neither the safety, the morals, nor the
welfare of the public, and that the interest of the public is not in the
slightest degree affected by such an act. The law must be upheld, if at
all, as a law pertaining to the health of the individual engaged in the
occupation of a baker. It does not affect any other portion of the
public than those who are engaged in that occupation. Clean and
wholesome bread does not depend upon whether the baker works but ten
hours per day or only sixty hours a week. The limitation of the hours of
labor does not come within the police power on that ground.
It is a question of which of two powers or rights
shall prevail -- the power of the State to legislate or the right of the
individual to liberty of person and freedom of contract. The mere
assertion that the subject relates though but in a remote degree to the
public health does not necessarily render the enactment valid. The act
must have a more direct relation, as a means to an end, and the end
itself must be appropriate and legitimate, before an act can be held to
be valid which interferes with the general right of an individual to be
free in his person and in his power to contract in relation to his own
labor.
This case has caused much diversity of opinion in the state courts. In
the Supreme Court, two of the five judges composing the Appellate
Division dissented from the judgment affirming the validity of the act.
In the Court of Appeals, three of the seven judges also dissented from
the judgment upholding the statute. Although found in what is called a
labor law of the State, the Court of Appeals has upheld the act as one
relating to the public health -- in other words, as a health law. One of
the judges of the Court of Appeals, in upholding the law, stated that,
in his opinion, the regulation in question could not be sustained unless
they were able to say, from common knowledge, that working in a bakery
and candy factory was an unhealthy employment. The judge held that,
while the evidence was not uniform, it still led him to the conclusion
that the occupation of a baker or confectioner was unhealthy, and tended
to result in diseases of the respiratory organs. Three of the judges
dissented from that view, and they thought the occupation of a baker was
not to such an extent unhealthy as to warrant the interference of the
legislature with the liberty of the individual.
We think the limit of the police power has been
reached and passed in this case. There is, in our judgment, no
reasonable foundation for holding this to be necessary or appropriate as
a health law to safeguard the public health or the health of the
individuals who are following the trade of a baker. If this statute be
valid, and if, therefore, a proper case is made out in which to deny the
right of an individual, sui juris, as employer or employee, to
make contracts for the labor of the latter under the protection of the
provisions of the Federal Constitution, there would seem to be no length
to which legislation of this nature might not go. The case
differs widely, as we have already stated, from the expressions of this
court in regard to laws of this nature, as stated in Holden v. Hardy
and Jacobson v. Massachusetts, supra.
We think that there can be no fair doubt that the
trade of a baker, in and of itself, is not an unhealthy one to that
degree which would authorize the legislature to interfere with the right
to labor, and with the right of free contract on the part of the
individual, either as employer or employee. In looking through
statistics regarding all trades and occupations, it may be true that the
trade of a baker does not appear to be as healthy as some other trades,
and is also vastly more healthy than still others. To the common
understanding, the trade of a baker has never been regarded as an
unhealthy one. Very likely, physicians would not recommend the exercise
of that or of any other trade as a remedy for ill health. Some
occupations are more healthy than others, but we think there are none
which might not come under the power of the legislature to supervise and
control the hours of working therein if the mere fact that the
occupation is not absolutely and perfectly healthy is to confer that
right upon the legislative department of the Government. It might be
safely affirmed that almost all occupations more or less affect the
health. There must be more than the mere fact of the possible existence
of some small amount of unhealthiness to warrant legislative
interference with liberty. It is unfortunately true that labor, even in
any department, may possibly carry with it the seeds of unhealthiness.
But are we all, on that account, at the mercy of legislative majorities?
A printer, a tinsmith, a locksmith, a carpenter, a cabinetmaker, a dry
goods clerk, a bank's, a lawyer's or a physician's clerk, or a clerk in
almost any kind of business, would all come under the power of the
legislature on this assumption. No trade, no occupation, no mode of
earning one's living could escape this all-pervading power, and the acts
of the legislature in limiting the hours of labor in all employments
would be valid although such limitation might seriously cripple the
ability of the laborer to support himself and his family. In our large
cities there are many buildings into which the sun penetrates for but a
short time in each day, and these buildings are occupied by people
carrying on the business of bankers, brokers, lawyers, real estate, and
many other kinds of business, aided by many clerks, messengers, and
other employs. Upon the assumption of the validity of this act under
review, it is not possible to say that an act prohibiting lawyers' or
bank clerks, or others from contracting to labor for their employers
more than eight hours a day would be invalid. It might be said that it
is unhealthy to work more than that number of hours in an apartment
lighted by artificial light during the working hours of the day; that
the occupation of the bank clerk, the lawyer's clerk, the real estate
clerk, or the broker's clerk in such offices is therefore unhealthy, and
the legislature, in its paternal wisdom, must therefore have the right
to legislate on the subject of, and to limit the hours for, such labor,
and, if it exercises that power and its validity be questioned, it is
sufficient to say it has reference to the public health; it has
reference to the health of the employees condemned to labor day after
day in buildings where the sun never shines; it is a health law, and
therefore it is valid, and cannot be questioned by the courts.
It is also urged, pursuing the same line of
argument, that it is to the interest of the State that its population
should be strong and robust, and therefore any legislation which may be
said to tend to make people healthy must be valid as health laws,
enacted under the police power. If this be a valid argument and a
justification for this kind of legislation, it follows that the
protection of the Federal Constitution from undue interference with
liberty of person and freedom of contract is visionary wherever the law
is sought to be justified as a valid exercise of the police power.
Scarcely any law but might find shelter under such assumptions, and
conduct, properly so called, as well as contract, would come under the
restrictive sway of the legislature. Not only the hours of employees,
but the hours of employers, could be regulated, and doctors, lawyers,
scientists, all professional men, as well as athletes and artisans,
could be forbidden to fatigue their brains and bodies by prolonged hours
of exercise, lest the fighting strength of the State be impaired. We
mention these extreme cases because the contention is extreme. We do not
believe in the soundness of the views which uphold this law. On the
contrary, we think that such a law as this, although passed in the
assumed exercise of the police power, and as relating to the public
health, or the health of the employees named, is not within that power,
and is invalid. The act is not, within any fair meaning of the term, a
health law, but is an illegal interference with the rights of
individuals, both employers and employees, to make contracts regarding
labor upon such terms as they may think best, or which they may agree
upon with the other parties to such contracts. Statutes of the nature of
that under review, limiting the hours in which grown and intelligent men
may labor to earn their living, are mere meddlesome interferences with
the rights of the individual, and they are not saved from condemnation
by the claim that they are passed in the exercise of the police power
and upon the subject of the health of the individual whose rights are
interfered with, unless there be some fair ground, reasonable in and of
itself, to say that there is material danger to the public health or to
the health of the employees if the hours of labor are not curtailed. If
this be not clearly the case, the individuals whose rights are thus made
the subject of legislative interference are under the protection of the
Federal Constitution regarding their liberty of contract as well as of
person, and the legislature of the State has no power to limit their
right as proposed in this statute. All that it could properly do has
been done by it with regard to the conduct of bakeries, as provided for
in the other sections of the act above set forth. These several sections
provide for the inspection of the premises where the bakery is carried
on, with regard to furnishing proper wash-rooms and water-closets, apart
from the bake-room, also with regard to providing proper drainage,
plumbing and painting; the sections, in addition, provide for the height
of the ceiling, the cementing or tiling of floors, where necessary in
the opinion of the factory inspector, and for other things of that
nature; alterations are also provided for and are to be made where
necessary in the opinion of the inspector, in order to comply with the
provisions of the statute. These various sections may be wise and valid
regulations, and they certainly go to the full extent of providing for
the cleanliness and the healthiness, so far as possible, of the quarters
in which bakeries are to be conducted. Adding to all these requirements
a prohibition to enter into any contract of labor in a bakery for more
than a certain number of hours a week is, in our judgment, so wholly
beside the matter of a proper, reasonable and fair provision as to run
counter to that liberty of person and of free contract provided for in
the Federal Constitution.
It was further urged on the argument that
restricting the hours of labor in the case of bakers was valid because
it tended to cleanliness on the part of the workers, as a man was more
apt to be cleanly when not overworked, and, if cleanly, then his "output"
was also more likely to be so. What has already been said applies with
equal force to this contention. We do not admit the reasoning to be
sufficient to justify the claimed right of such interference. The State
in that case would assume the position of a supervisor, or pater
familias, over every act of the individual, and its right of
governmental interference with his hours of labor, his hours of
exercise, the character thereof, and the extent to which it shall be
carried would be recognized and upheld. In our judgment, it is not
possible, in fact, to discover the connection between the number of
hours a baker may work in the bakery and the healthful quality of the
bread made by the workman. The connection, if any exists, is too shadowy
and thin to build any argument for the interference of the legislature.
If the man works ten hours a day, it is all right, but if ten and a half
or eleven, his health is in danger and his bread may be unhealthful,
and, therefore, he shall not be permitted to do it. This, we think, is
unreasonable, and entirely arbitrary. When assertions such as we have
adverted to become necessary in order to give, if possible, a plausible
foundation for the contention that the law is a "health law,"
it gives rise to at least a suspicion that there was some other motive
dominating the legislature than the purpose to subserve the public
health or welfare.
This interference on the part of the legislatures of the several States
with the ordinary trades and occupations of the people seems to be on
the increase. In the Supreme Court of New York, in the case of People
v. Beattie, Appellate Division, First Department, decided in 1904,
89 N.Y.Supp. 193, a statute regulating the trade of horseshoeing, and
requiring the person practicing such trade to be examined and to obtain
a certificate from a board of examiners and file the same with the clerk
of the county wherein the person proposes to practice his trade, was
held invalid as an arbitrary interference with personal liberty and
private property without due process of law. The attempt was made,
unsuccessfully, to justify it as a health law.
The same kind of a statute was held invalid (In re Aubry) by
the Supreme Court of Washington in December, 1904. 78 Pac.Rep. 900. The
court held that the act deprived citizens of their liberty and property
without due process of law and denied to them the equal protection of
the laws. It also held that the trade of a horseshoer is not a subject
of regulation under the police power of the State as a business
concerning and directly affecting the health, welfare or comfort of its
inhabitants, and that, therefore, a law which provided for the
examination and registration of horseshoers in certain cities was
unconstitutional as an illegitimate exercise of the police power.
The Supreme Court of Illinois in Bessette v. People, 193
Illinois 334, also held that a law of the same nature, providing for the
regulation and licensing of horseshoers, was unconstitutional as an
illegal interference with the liberty of the individual in adopting and
pursuing such calling as he may choose, subject only to the restraint
necessary secure the common welfare. See also Godcharles v. Wigeman,
113 Pa. St. 431, 437; Low v. Rees Printing Co., 41 Nebraska 127,
145. In these cases, the courts upheld the right of free contract and
the right to purchase and sell labor upon such terms as the parties may
agree to.
It is impossible for us to shut our eyes to the
fact that many of the laws of this character, while passed under what is
claimed to be the police power for the purpose of protecting the public
health or welfare, are, in reality, passed from other motives. We are
justified in saying so when, from the character of the law and the
subject upon which it legislates, it is apparent that the public health
or welfare bears but the most remote relation to the law. The purpose of
a statute must be determined from the natural and legal effect of the
language employed, and whether it is or is not repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States must be determined from the natural
effect of such statutes when put into operation, and not from their
proclaimed purpose. Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U.S. 313;
Brimmer v. Rebman, 138 U.S. 78. The court looks beyond the mere
letter of the law in such cases. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S.
356 .
It is manifest to us that the limitation of the
hours of labor as provided for in this section of the statute under
which the indictment was found, and the plaintiff in error convicted,
has no such direct relation to, and no such substantial effect upon, the
health of the employee as to justify us in regarding the section as
really a health law. It seems to us that the real object and purpose
were simply to regulate the hours of labor between the master and his
employees (all being men sui juris) in a private business, not
dangerous in any degree to morals or in any real and substantial degree
to the health of the employees. Under such circumstances, the freedom of
master and employee to contract with each other in relation to their
employment, and in defining the same, cannot be prohibited or interfered
with without violating the Federal Constitution.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York, as well as that of
the Supreme Court and of the County Court of Oneida County, must be
reversed, and the case remanded to the County Court for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
*
§ 110. Hours of labor in bakeries and confectionery
establishments. -- No employee shall be required or permitted to
work in a biscuit, bread or cake bakery or confectionery establishment
more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than ten hours in any one
day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day on the last day
of the week; nor more hours in any one week than will make an average of
ten hours per day for the number of days during such week in which such
employee shall work.
§ 111. Drainage and plumbing of building and rooms occupied by
bakeries. -- All buildings or rooms occupied as biscuit, bread, pie
or cake bakeries shall be drained and plumbed in a manner conducive to
the proper and healthful sanitary condition thereof, and shall be
constructed with air shafts, windows or ventilating pipes, sufficient to
insure ventilation. The factory inspector may direct the proper
drainage, plumbing and ventilation of such rooms or buildings. No cellar
or basement not now used for a bakery shall hereafter be so occupied or
used unless the proprietor shall comply with the sanitary provisions of
this article.
§ 112. Requirements as to rooms, furniture, utensils and
manufactured products. -- Every room used for the manufacture of
flour or meal food products shall be at least eight feet in height and
shall have, if deemed necessary by the factory inspector, an impermeable
floor constructed of cement, or of tiles laid in cement, or an
additional flooring of wood properly saturated with linseed oil. The
side walls of such rooms shall be plastered or wainscoted. The factory
inspector may require the side walls and ceiling to be whitewashed at
least once in three months. He may also require the woodwork of such
walls to be painted. The furniture and utensils shall be so arranged as
to be readily cleansed and not prevent the proper cleaning of any part
of a room. The manufactured flour or meal food products shall be kept in
dry and airy rooms, so arranged that the floors, shelves and all other
facilities for storing the same can be properly cleaned. No domestic
animal, except cats, shall be allowed to remain in a room used as a
biscuit, bread, pie, or cake bakery, or any room in such bakery where
flour or meal product are stored.
§ 113. Wash-rooms and closets; sleeping places. -- Every
such bakery shall be provided with a proper washroom and water-closet or
water-closet apart from the bake-room, or room where the manufacture of
such food product is conducted, and no water-closet, earth-closet, privy
or ash-pit shall be within or connected directly with the bake-room of
any bakery, hotel or public restaurant.
No person shall sleep in a room occupied as a bake-room. Sleeping
places for the persons employed in the bakery shall be separate from the
rooms where flour or meal food products are manufactured or stored. If
the sleeping places are on the same floor where such products are
manufactured, stored or sold, the factory inspector may inspect and
order them put in a proper sanitary condition.
§ 114. Inspection of bakeries. -- The factory inspector
shall cause all bakeries to be inspected. If it be found upon such
inspection that the bakeries so inspected are constructed and conducted
in compliance with the provisions of this chapter, the factory inspector
shall issue a certificate to the person owning or conducting such
bakeries.
§ 115. Notice requiring alterations. -- If, in the opinion
of the factory inspector, alterations are required in or upon premises
occupied and used as bakeries in order to comply with the provisions of
this article, a written notice shall be served by him upon the owner,
agent or lessee of such premises, either personally or by mail,
requiring such alteration to be made within sixty day after such
service, and such alterations hall be made accordingly. |
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HARLAN,
J., Dissenting Opinion
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MR.
JUSTICE HARLAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. JUSTICE DAY
concurred, disenting
While this court has not attempted to mark the
precise boundaries of what is called the police power of the State, the
existence of the power has been uniformly recognized, both by the
Federal and state courts.
All the cases agree that this power extends at
least to the protection of the lives, the health, and the safety of the
public against the injurious exercise by any citizen of his own rights.
In Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U.S. 501, after
referring to the general principle that rights given by the Constitution
cannot be impaired by state legislation of any kind, this court said:
It [this court] has, nevertheless, with marked
distinctness and uniformity, recognized the necessity, growing out of
the fundamental conditions of civil society, of upholding state police
regulations which were enacted in good faith and had appropriate and
direct connection with that protection to life, health, and property
which each State owes to her citizens.
So, in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27:
But neither the [14th] Amendment -- broad and
comprehensive as it is -- nor any other Amendment was designed to
interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its police
power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals,
education, and good order of the people.
Speaking generally, the State, in the exercise of
its powers, may not unduly interfere with the right of the citizen to
enter into contracts that may be necessary and essential in the
enjoyment of the inherent rights belonging to everyone, among which
rights is the right
to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties;
to be free to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he
will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; to pursue any
livelihood or avocation.
This was declared in Allgeyer v. Louisiana,
165 U.S. 578, 589. But, in the same case, it was conceded that the right
to contract in relation to persons and property or to do business within
a State may be "regulated, and sometimes prohibited, when the
contracts or business conflict with the policy of the State as contained
in its statutes." (P. 591).
So, as said in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 , 391 :
This right of contract, however, is itself
subject to certain limitations which the State may lawfully impose in
the exercise of its police powers. While this power is inherent in all
government, it has doubtless been greatly expanded in its application
during the past century owing to an enormous increase in the number of
occupations which are dangerous, or so far detrimental to the health of
the employees as to demand special precautions for their wellbeing and
protection, or the safety of adjacent property. While this court
has held, notably in the cases of Davidson v. New Orleans, 96
U.S. 97, and Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 , that
the police power cannot be put forward as an
excuse for oppressive and unjust legislation, it may be lawfully
resorted to for the purpose of preserving the public health, safety or
morals, or the abatement of public nuisances, and a large discretion
is necessarily vested in the legislature to
determine not only what the interests of the public require, but what
measures are necessary for the protection of such interests.
Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 136.
Referring to the limitations placed by the State upon the hours of
workmen, the court in the same case said (p. 395):
These employments, when too long pursued, the
legislature has judged to be detrimental to the health of the employees,
and, so long as there are reasonable grounds for believing that this is
so, its decision upon this subject cannot be reviewed by the Federal
courts.
Subsequently in Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U.S. 183, 188, this
court said:
Regulations respecting the pursuit of a lawful
trade or business are of very frequent occurrence in the various cities
of the country, and what such regulations shall be and to what
particular trade, business or occupation they shall apply are questions
for the State to determine, and their determination comes within the
proper exercise of the police power by the State, and unless the
regulations are so utterly unreasonable and extravagant in their nature
and purpose that the property and personal rights of the citizen are
unnecessarily, and in a manner wholly arbitrary, interfered with or
destroyed without due process of law, they do not extend beyond the
power of the State to pass, and they form no subject for Federal
interference.
As stated in Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U.S. 86,
the possession and enjoyment of all rights are
subject to such reasonable conditions as may be deemed by the governing
authority of the country essential to the safety, health, peace, good
order and morals of the community.
In St. Louis, Iron Mountain &c. Ry. v. Paul, 173 U.S. 404,
409, and in Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U.S. 13, 21, 22,
it was distinctly adjudged that the right of
contract was not "absolute in respect to every matter, but may be
subjected to the restraints demanded by the safety and welfare of the
State." Those cases illustrate the extent to which the State
may restrict or interfere with the exercise of the right of contracting.
The authorities on the same line are so numerous that further citations
are unnecessary.
I take it to be firmly established that what is
called the liberty of contract may, within certain limits, be subjected
to regulations designed and calculated to promote the general welfare or
to guard the public health, the public morals or the public safety. "The
liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person
within its jurisdiction does not import," this court has recently
said,
an absolute right in each person to be, at all
times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are
manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the
common good. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11.
Granting then that there is a liberty of contract
which cannot be violated even under the sanction of direct legislative
enactment, but assuming, as according to settled law we may assume, that
such liberty of contract is subject to such regulations as the State may
reasonably prescribe for the common good and the wellbeing of society,
what are the conditions under which the judiciary may declare such
regulations to be in excess of legislative authority and void? Upon this
point there is no room for dispute, for the rule is universal that a
legislative enactment, Federal or state, is never to be disregarded or
held invalid unless it be, beyond question, plainly and palpably in
excess of legislative power. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, supra,
we said that the power of the courts to review legislative action in
respect of a matter affecting the general welfare exists only
when that which the legislature has done comes
within the rule that, if a statute purporting to have been enacted to
protect the public health, the public morals or the public safety, has
no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is, beyond all
question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the
fundamental law
-- citing Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 661; Minnesota v.
Barber, 136 U.S. 313, 320; Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207,
223. If there be doubt as to the validity of the
statute, that doubt must therefore be resolved in favor of its validity,
and the courts must keep their hands off, leaving the legislature to
meet the responsibility for unwise legislation. If the end which the
legislature seeks to accomplish be one to which its power extends, and
if the means employed to that end, although not the wisest or best, are
yet not plainly and palpably unauthorized by law, then the court cannot
interfere. In other words, when the validity of a statute is questioned,
the burden of proof, so to speak, is upon those who assert it to be
unconstitutional. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 ,
421.
Let these principles be applied to the present
case. By the. statute in question, it is provided that
No employee shall be required or permitted to
work in a biscuit, bread or cake bakery or confectionery establishment
more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than ten hours in any one
day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day on the last day
of the week; nor more hours in any one week than will make an average of
ten hours per day for the number of days during such week in which such
employee shall work.
It is plain that this statute was enacted in
order to protect the physical wellbeing of those who work in bakery and
confectionery establishments. It may be that the statute had its origin,
in part, in the belief that employers and employees in such
establishments were not upon an equal footing, and that the necessities
of the latter often compelled them to submit to such exactions as unduly
taxed their strength. Be this as it may, the statute must be taken as
expressing the belief of the people of New York that, as a general rule,
and in the case of the average man, labor in excess of sixty hours
during a week in such establishments may endanger the health of those
who thus labor. Whether or not this be wise legislation it is not the
province of the court to inquire. Under our systems of government, the
courts are not concerned with the wisdom or policy of legislation. So
that, in determining the question of power to interfere with liberty of
contract, the court may inquire whether the means devised by the State
are germane to an end which may be lawfully accomplished and have a real
or substantial relation to the protection of health, as involved in the
daily work of the persons, male and female, engaged in bakery and
confectionery establishments. But when this inquiry is entered upon, I
find it impossible, in view of common experience, to say that there is
here no real or substantial relation between the means employed by the
State and the end sought to be accomplished by its legislation. Mugler
v. Kansas, supra. Nor can I say that the statute has no appropriate
or direct connection with that protection to health which each State
owes to her citizens, Patterson v. Kentucky, supra; or that it
is not promotive of the health of the employees in question, Holden
v. Hardy, Lawton v. Steele, supra; or that the regulation
prescribed by the State is utterly unreasonable and extravagant or
wholly arbitrary, Gundling v. Chicago, supra. Still less can I
say that the statute is, beyond question, a plain, palpable invasion of
rights secured by the fundamental law. Jacobson v. Massachusetts,
supra. Therefore, I submit that this court will transcend its
functions if it assumes to annul the statute of New York. It must be
remembered that this statute does not apply to all kinds of business. It
applies only to work in bakery and confectionery establishments, in
which, as all know, the air constantly breathed by workmen is not as
pure and healthful as that to be found in some other establishments or
out of doors.
Professor Hirt, in his treatise on the "Diseases
of the Workers," has said:
The labor of the bakers is among the hardest and
most laborious imaginable, because it has to be performed under
conditions injurious to the health of those engaged in it. It is hard,
very hard work, not only because it requires a great deal of physical
exertion in an overheated workshop and during unreasonably long hours,
but more so because of the erratic demands of the public, compelling the
baker to perform the greater part of his work at night, thus depriving
him of an opportunity to enjoy the necessary rest and sleep, a fact
which is highly injurious to his health.
Another writer says:
The constant inhaling of flour dust causes
inflammation of the lungs and of the bronchial tubes. The eyes also
suffer through this dust, which is responsible for the many cases of
running eyes among the bakers. The long hours of toil to which all
bakers are subjected produce rheumatism, cramps and swollen legs. The
intense heat in the workshops induces the workers to resort to cooling
drinks, which, together with their habit of exposing the greater part of
their bodies to the change in the atmosphere, is another source of a
number of diseases of various organs. Nearly all bakers are pale-faced
and of more delicate health than the workers of other crafts, which is
chiefly due to their hard work and their irregular and unnatural mode of
living, whereby the power of resistance against disease is greatly
diminished. The average age of a baker is below that of other workmen;
they seldom live over their fiftieth year, most of them dying between
the ages of forty and fifty. During periods of epidemic diseases, the
bakers are generally the first to succumb to the disease, and the number
swept away during such periods far exceeds the number of other crafts in
comparison to the men employed in the respective industries. When, in
1720, the plague visited the city of Marseilles, France, every baker in
the city succumbed to the epidemic, which caused considerable excitement
in the neighboring cities and resulted in measures for the sanitary
protection of the bakers.
In the Eighteenth Annual Report by the New York
Bureau of Statistics of Labor it is stated that, among the occupations
involving exposure to conditions that interfere with nutrition is that
of a baker (p. 52). In that Report, it is also stated that,
from a social point of view, production will be
increased by any change in industrial organization which diminishes the
number of idlers, paupers and criminals. Shorter hours of work, by
allowing higher standards of comfort and purer family life, promise to
enhance the industrial efficiency of the wage-working class -- improved
health, longer life, more content and greater intelligence and
inventiveness.
(P. 82).
Statistics show that the average daily working time among workingmen in
different countries is, in Australia, 8 hours; in Great Britain, 9; in
the United States, 9; in Denmark, 9; in Norway, 10; Sweden, France and
Switzerland, 10; Germany, 10; Belgium, Italy and Austria, 11, and in
Russia, 12 hours.
We judicially know that the question of the
number of hours during which a workman should continuously labor has
been, for a long period, and is yet, a subject of serious consideration
among civilized peoples and by those having special knowledge of the
laws of health. Suppose the statute prohibited labor in bakery and
confectionery establishments in excess of eighteen hours each day. No
one, I take it, could dispute the power of the State to enact such a
statute. But the statute before us does not embrace extreme or
exceptional cases. It may be said to occupy a middle ground in respect
of the hours of labor. What is the true ground for the State to take
between legitimate protection, by legislation, of the public health and
liberty of contract is not a question easily solved, nor one in respect
of which there is or can be absolute certainty. There are very few, if
any, questions in political economy about which entire certainty may be
predicated. One writer on relation of the State to labor has well said:
The manner, occasion, and degree in which the
State may interfere with the industrial freedom of its citizens is one
of the most debatable and difficult questions of social science.
Jevons, 33.
We also judicially know that the number of hours
that should constitute a day's labor in particular occupations involving
the physical strength and safety of workmen has been the subject of
enactments by Congress and by nearly all of the States. Many if not most
of those enactments fix eight hours as the proper basis of a day's
labor.
I do not stop to consider whether any particular
view of this economic question presents the sounder theory. What the
precise facts are it may be difficult to say. It is enough for the
determination of this case, and it is enough for this court to know,
that the question is one about which there is room for debate and for an
honest difference of opinion. There are many reasons of a weighty,
substantial character, based upon the experience of mankind, in support
of the theory that, all things considered, more than ten hours' steady
work each day, from week to week, in a bakery or confectionery
establishment, may endanger the health, and shorten the lives of the
workmen, thereby diminishing their physical and mental capacity to serve
the State, and to provide for those dependent upon them.
If such reasons exist, that ought to be the end
of this case, for the State is not amenable to the judiciary in respect
of its legislative enactments unless such enactments are plainly,
palpably, beyond all question, inconsistent with the Constitution of the
United States. We are not to presume that the State of New York has
acted in bad faith. Nor can we assume that its legislature acted without
due deliberation, or that it did not determine this question upon the
fullest attainable information, and for the common good. We cannot say
that the State has acted without reason, nor ought we to proceed upon
the theory that its action is a mere sham. Our duty, I submit, is to
sustain the statute as not being in conflict with the Federal
Constitution for the reason -- and such is an all-sufficient reason --
it is not shown to be plainly and palpably inconsistent with that
instrument. Let the State alone in the management of its purely domestic
affairs so long as it does not appear beyond all question that it has
violated the Federal Constitution. This view necessarily results from
the principle that the health and safety of the people of a State are
primarily for the State to guard and protect.
I take leave to say that the New York statute, in
the particulars here involved, cannot be held to be in conflict with the
Fourteenth Amendment without enlarging the scope of the Amendment far
beyond its original purpose and without bringing under the supervision
of this court matters which have been supposed to belong exclusively to
the legislative departments of the several States when exerting their
conceded power to guard the health and safety of their citizens by such
regulations as they in their wisdom deem best. Health laws of every
description constitute, said Chief Justice Marshall, a part of that mass
of legislation which
embraces everything within the territory of a
State not surrendered to the General Government; all which can be most
advantageously exercised by the States themselves.
Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 , 203 . A
decision that the New York statute is void under the Fourteenth
Amendment will, in my opinion, involve consequences of a far-reaching
and mischievous character; for such a decision would seriously cripple
the inherent power of the States to care for the lives, health and
wellbeing of their citizens. Those are matters which can be best
controlled by the States. The preservation of the just powers of the
States is quite as vital as the preservation of the powers of the
General Government.
When this court had before it the question of the constitutionality of
a statute of Kansas making it a criminal offense for a contractor for
public work to permit or require his employees to perform labor upon
such work in excess of eight hours each day, it was contended that the
statute was in derogation of the liberty both of employees and employer.
It was further contended that the Kansas statute was mischievous in its
tendencies. This court, while disposing of the question only as it
affected public work, held that the Kansas statute was not void under
the Fourteenth Amendment. But it took occasion to say what may well be
here repeated:
The responsibility therefor rests upon
legislators, not upon the courts. No evils arising from such legislation
could be more far-reaching than those that might come to our system of
government if the judiciary, abandoning the sphere assigned to it by the
fundamental law, should enter the domain of legislation, and upon
grounds merely of justice or reason or wisdom, annul statutes that had
received the sanction of the people's representatives. We are reminded
by counsel that it is the solemn duty of the courts in cases before them
to guard the constitutional rights of the citizen against merely
arbitrary power. That is unquestionably true. But it is equally true --
indeed, the public interests imperatively demand -- that legislative
enactments should be recognized and enforced by the courts as embodying
the will of the people unless they are plainly and palpably, beyond all
question, in violation of the fundamental law of the Constitution.
Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207, 223.
The judgment in my opinion should be affirmed. |
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HOLMES,
J., Dissenting Opinion
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MR.
JUSTICE HOLMES, dissenting.
I regret sincerely that I am unable to agree with the judgment in this
case, and that I think it my duty to express my dissent.
This case is decided upon an economic theory
which a large part of the country does not entertain. If it were a
question whether I agreed with that theory, I should desire to study it
further and long before making up my mind. But I do not conceive that to
be my duty, because I strongly believe that my agreement or disagreement
has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions
in law. It is settled by various decisions of this court that state
constitutions and state laws may regulate life in many ways which we, as
legislators, might think as injudicious, or, if you like, as tyrannical,
as this, and which, equally with this, interfere with the liberty to
contract. Sunday laws and usury laws are ancient examples. A more modern
one is the prohibition of lotteries. The liberty of the citizen to do as
he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to
do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is
interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or
municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought
desirable, whether he likes it or not. The Fourteenth Amendment does not
enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. The other day, we
sustained the Massachusetts vaccination law. Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11. United States and state statutes and
decisions cutting down the liberty to contract by way of combination are
familiar to this court. Northern Securities Co. v. United States,
193 U.S. 197 . Two years ago, we upheld the prohibition of sales of
stock on margins or for future delivery in the constitution of
California. Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606. The decision
sustaining an eight hour law for miners is still recent. Holden v.
Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 . Some of these laws
embody convictions or prejudices which judges are likely to share. Some
may not. But a constitution is not intended to embody a particular
economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the
citizen to the State or of laissez faire. It is made for people
of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding
certain opinions natural and familiar or novel and even shocking ought
not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes
embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.
General propositions do not decide concrete
cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle
than any articulate major premise. But I think that the proposition just
stated, if it is accepted, will carry us far toward the end. Every
opinion tends to become a law. I think that the word liberty in the
Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural
outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and
fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would
infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the
traditions of our people and our law. It does not need research to show
that no such sweeping condemnation can be passed upon the statute before
us. A reasonable man might think it a proper measure on the score of
health. Men whom I certainly could not pronounce unreasonable would
uphold it as a first instalment of a general regulation of the hours of
work. Whether in the latter aspect it would be open to the charge of
inequality I think it unnecessary to discuss. |
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