Partha P.

Choudhury MLPOS 5375 Young

Final Exam

I.

Lochner V. New York compared to West Coast Hotel V. Parrish. (Liberty of Contracts). Hammer V. Dagenhart compared to Darby Lumber V. US. (Workers Rights). Kelo V. City of New London compared to Louisville Bank V. Radford. (Present Eminent Domain Issues and Property Rights). Morehead V. NY compared to Garcia V. San Antonio Metro Transit Authority. (Labor and Wages).

II.

The concept of liberty of contracts is ingrained in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. An act passed by the New York legislature called the Bakeshop Act restricted the allotted time in which an employee could work in a bakery to 10 hours per day and 60 hours per week. Cited reasons for this legislation was the hazardous nature of the bakeries at the time which were deemed unsanitary, poorly ventilated and could be injurious to the health of the baker. In an era of the laissez faire period, the Supreme Court granted deference to the business interest largely. In Lochner V. New York, an employer who owned a bakery who was fined twice upon both requiring and allowing his employee to work past the allotted time, took his case to the Supreme Court and cited the liberty of contracts clause in which he and his employee came to an accord regarding the hours and the labor undertaken. Granted that this case originally was deliberated upon in NY, which was experiencing reforms in regards to the conditions of the working environment and wages, it was generally understood that the legislation put into effect was curbing the bargaining power with which employers could dictate the nature of their business. Upon the ruling, it was asserted that the police powers where the State has the obligation to protect the public welfare, could be seen as very ambiguous in this case, given that baking isnt seen as particularly hazardous. The conservative ideology of the Supreme Court at the time deliberated upon the case with ruling that the Bakeshop Act was in violation of the liberty of contracts clause. In the case from the New Deal Constitution, West Coast Hotel, which was under the tenure of the Hughes Court, saw the disenfranchisement of women in terms of the sort of bargaining that they could strike with their employers. A Washington state legislation granted women and minors the right to a minimum wage. During the time of the Great Depression, the usually conservative Hughes Court acknowledged in West Coast Hotel the sense of urgency with which unscrupulous employers could garnish wages from employees and cited the unfair leverage that many employers have. Compared to Lochner, West Coast Hotel was the sort of repudiation of the laissez faire era Supreme Court and given the Roosevelt presidency during the New Deal, the Hughes Court gave consideration to the plight of the nation at the time. The issue here is the liberty of contracts and the police powers of the state. One Court saw the necessity to have no constraints upon business and the Hughes Court saw the necessity to render a ruling based upon the merits of the situation.

Hammer V. Dagenhart, which had been decided on 1918, addressed the issue of child labor. In 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, which barred the shipment of goods made by children under the age of 14 who worked more than 8 hours a day or 6 days a week. It was during the Progressive Era in which President Woodrow Wilson and the rest of the country saw the need to address the plight of children working in haggard conditions and being subject to neglect. Dagenhart, who had owned a cotton mill and worked with his two sons, cited the Keating-Owen Act as unconstitutional. At issue was the nature of the work that many children were undertaking and the conditions of employment of working minors werent at all the same. Justice Day, who had delivered the case opinion, argued that many products made by children werent inherently harmful. In his opinion, Congress doesnt have the right to regulate which products had been made by children and since the plaintiff who had brought the case to trial had owned a cotton mill, which wasnt deemed inherently harmful to minors at the time, Day sought the distinction between products of an impure nature and that which is relatively innocuous. The Supreme Court relented that legislation had been passed that barred the sort of unscrupulous employment of children but also cited that the Commerce Clause was also being hindered. The grant of power of Congress over the subject of interstate commerce was to enable it to regulate such commerce, and not to give it authority to control the states in their exercise of the police power over local trade and manufacture. This was in tandem with the laissez faire reasoning of the Court at the time. In 1941 during the New Deal, Darby had been the case that had overruled Hammer. Darby Lumber was a company that didnt meet many of the standards that were being affected by Congress at the time. At issue was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court which said that Congress had the Commerce Clause to regulate employment and working conditions. The issue was the 10th Amendment in which the federal government was barred from interfering with intrastate commerce. But the change in the ideology of the Court at the time saw the liberalization of employment standards and the Act stood as law.

Kelo V. City of New London saw the Supreme Court rule in the favor of eminent domain which means that private property owned by individuals are privy to economic development by an outside 3rd party. Residential property had to be assimilated by the city of New London to make way for redevelopment and the creation of over 3,000 jobs. This was justified by the takings clause of the 5th Amendment. In regards to the ownership of private property, if a neighborhood could see a general degree of gentrification and renovation, then local government has the right to annex such property and pay the owners restitution. It was one of the most controversial cases of the Rehnquist Court. In such a conservative Court, the liberal Justices were the ones who had the majority. The conservative Justices unilaterally voiced dissent against the ruling. Sandra Day OConnor said Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. In a case from the New Deal Era, Louisville Bank V. Radford, a man who had purchased some land with his wife from a bank, saw the couple running into financial turmoil and having to default on the debt that they had owed to the Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank. The Frazier-Lemke Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, passed by Congress in 1934, allowed debt-ridden farmers a way to redeem their land. Upon reaching the docket of the Supreme Court, Justice Brandeis saw that Radford had been at fault for neglecting to pay his due expenses and that the bank had been given the burden of being denied compensation in violation of the 5th Amendment. Brandeis sided with the bank because of the fact that Mr. Radford wasnt able to afford any refinancing on his farm to which he had been indebted to to the bank. Brandeis saw that the bank was due its just compensation. The ruling was final; that private property couldnt be taken without just compensation. This was one of the cases on Black Monday that had countered FDRs New Deal. These cases, given the vast time discrepancies, both hinge upon the 5th Amendment. Kelo was an outright assault upon the American notion of ownership of private property, and yet because there was to be renovation and infrastructure to be built, the takings clause came into effect. Both of these cases hinge upon the ownership of property and both show the pervasive nature of how much the federal government can have undue influence over the property of individuals.

In Morehead V. NY ex. rel. Tipaldo, a minimum wage law in New York designed for women and children was struck down, given an antecedent case: Adkins V. Childrens Hospital. This was a case during the New Deal and was ruled as going against the due process clause, specifically the liberty of contracts. John Tipaldo had failed in granting his female employees the standard minimum wage. Upon taking the issue to be resolved in court, Tipaldo had asserted that the minimum wage law was unconstitutional. Cited in the syllabus of the case, The right to make contracts about one's affairs is a part of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, U.S. Const. amend. V. Within this liberty are provisions of contracts between employer and employee fixing the wages to be paid. In making contracts of employment, generally speaking, the parties have equal right to obtain from each other the best terms they can by private bargaining. Legislative abridgement of that freedom can only be justified by the existence of exceptional circumstances. Freedom of contract is the general rule and restraint the exception. In 1985, Garcia V. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Fair Labor Standards Act had come into focus. The San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (SAMTA) decided upon an act of Congress, that it would not be paying overtime due to its employees. Mr. Garcia took the SAMTA to court to recover his lost pay. At issue was the violation of the 10th Amendment of Constitution, which was against the regulation of state and local activities. In the final ruling, the Fair Labor Standards Act gave Congress the right to intervene during this sort of wage dispute. The federalist issue here between these two cases is the intercession by the federal government when it comes to the issue of wage discrepancy. In Morehead, the constitutionality of two parties being able to come to an accord when it had come to private wages had been the issue and the liberty of contracts is in focus. In Garcia, an individual working for an auxiliary of the federal government in the transportation industry, albeit in a state setting, is seeking redress for overtime pay. Given the dichotomy between the nature of the parties in these two cases, what is the common thread here is the liberty of contracts between employers and workers. The generational gaps between these cases show the intensity and the velocity with which workers are able to strike accords with employers and show the disparity of the government body known as the American judiciary when it came to intervening on cases during the Great Depression and more present times.