Locher vs. New York: What do you think of Liberty of Contracts?

Question

Do you believe the constitution created a right for individuals to enter contracts of their own choosing? Can the government set maximum hours laws? Can the government prevent a women from being a prostitute? Can the government force businesses to serve customers of all races.

Answer 1

In Lochner, the US Supreme Court struck down a New York law regulating the number of hours a baker could work by a 5-4 margin, rejecting the argument that the law was necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of bakers. The Court considered it to be an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract."

Lochner gave birth to a philosophical platform that the Supreme Court followed until 1937 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sick of the Supreme Court striking down his national recovery and social legislation, threatened to nominate additional supreme court justices and "pack the court" to outvote the then sitting justices.

The Lochner era tended to uphold freedom of contract over society's interests in regulating commerce and promoting health, safety and welfare. In effect, Lochner decided that freedom to contract could never be curtailed and trumped health, safety and welfare.

However, as we know, freedom to contract is not freedom to contract to commit crimes, or anything illegal. It was a contentious and fractious concept that led to labor abuses, and the use of children in dangerous industrial shops.

West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937) signalled the turning point and a slow turn away from Lochner, by upholding a minimum wage law.

Justice Hughes speaking for the Court, ruled that the Constitution permitted the restriction of liberty of contract by state law where such restriction protected the community, health and safety or vulnerable groups, as in the case of Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908), where the Court had found in favor of the regulation of women's working hours.

Lochner was effectively killed off forever in the 1955 case of Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483 (1955) where the US Supreme Court announced its new "rational basis or relationship" test and ruled that they would no longer sit as a "Super Legislature" questioning the wisdom of lawmakers in their fact-finding. This effectively eliminated the questioning of legislative findings, unless there are no findings when a law is made.

Answer 2

Do you believe the constitution created a right for individuals to enter contracts of their own choosing?

NO, the constitution RECOGNIZED the right for individuals to enter contracts on their own choosing. THE MOST BASIC principle of the constitution is that the people give the government rights, not the other way around.

Can the government set maximum hours laws?

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution lists powers given to congress. I have never found this power granted.

Answer 3

The Lochner decision is considered by most in the legal profession to be one of the worst in the books, we even made up a verb for it, "Lochnering" or "lochnered" so when the court makes a bad decision we say they Lochnered.

Answer 4

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