People ex rel. Hoelderlin v. Kane

This is a proceeding on habeas corpus said. to be brought to test the constitutionality of the law limiting the hours of labor of minors and women in factories, other than canning establishments, to 9 hours a day and 54 hours a week. The respondent returns that he holds the relator under three commitments for the violation of section 77 of the Labor Law. One, for employing a male minor under the age of 18 years more than 54 hours a week; another, for employing a female minor under the age of 21 years more than 54 hours a week; and another, for employing a female over the age of 21 years more than 54 hours a week. The return was traversed, alleging the unconstitutionality of section 77 of the Labor Law, as amended in 1912, and the district attorney appearing for the defendant demurred to the traverse.

The case might be summarily disposed of on the ground that, whatever may be said regarding the validity of the law limiting the hours of labor of adult women, it was competent beyond question for the Legislature to prescribe such limita

Prior to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, each state decided for itself the question of the limitation of the police power. It was a question of the domestic policy of the several states and the decisions of their tribunals upon it were final. Since the adoption of the amendment, the liberty of the individual is protected by the United States Constitution against action by the states. All judicial questions of the power of the several states to restrain liberty by the exercise of the police power are thus finally brought to the arbitrament of the United States Supreme Court. On this class of questions, that is the court of last resort, and its decisions are the supreme authority. Since the enactment of that amendment the courts of all the states, with reference to the rights therein secured to individuals, have become courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction. Whether the decision comes from Maine or Oregon, from Min

Bearing this principle in mind, I proceed to an examination of the authorities. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412 , 28 Sup. Ct. 324 , 52 L. Ed. 551 , 13 Ann. Cas. 957, decided that an act of the Legislature of Oregon prohibiting the employment of females in any mechanical establishment or factory or laundry more than ten hours during any day is not unconstitutional so far as respects laundries. The case differs from the one at bar, for in this case the employment was not in a laundry, but in a candy factory, and the legal limit is not 10 hours a day, but 9 hours a day and 54 hours a week. That case, however, decides the fundamental proposition that, for the purpose of the application of a law under the police power, the Legislature may establish a class composed of women alone, and may limit the hours of labor of the individuals composing that class.

In State v. Somerville, 67 Wash. 638 , 122 Pac. 324 , decided in March 1912, a law limiting the hours of labor of women to eight hours a day was held constitutional as applied to paper box manufactures. In Commonwealth v. Riley, 210 Mass. 387 , 97 N. E. 367 , Ann. Cas. 1912D, 388, decided January 1, 1912, an act limiting the hours during which women may be employed in manufacturing and mechanical establishments to 56 hours in one week and 10 hours in one day was upheld. In Ritchie & Co. v. Wayman, 244 Ill. 509 , 91 N. E. 695 , 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 994 , decided April 21, 1910, the courts of Illinois

I find practically nothing against all this weight of authority: Ritchie v. People, 155 Ill. 98 , 40 N. E. 454 , 29 L. R. A. 79 , 46 Am. St. Rep. 315 , has been distinguished to the point of being overruled by the later case of Ritchie & Co. v. Wayman, 244 Ill. 509 , 91 N. E. 695 , 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 994 . Matter of Maguire, 57 Cal. 604 , 40 Am. Rep. 125 , was a case of the employment of a woman in a barroom, and a statute prohibiting it was declared unconstitutional as violating section 18, art. 20, of the California Constitution, which provided that:

“No person shall on account of sex be disqualified from entering •upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation, or profession.”

This case obviously is no authority for the relator. Burcher v. People, 41 Colo. 495 , 93 Pac. 14 , 124 Am. St. Rep. 143 , was also decided upon the peculiar wording of the Constitution of Colorado.

The relator appeals to Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 , 25 Sup. Ct. 539 , 49 L. Ed. 937 , 3 Ann. Cas. 1133. This is the famous bakeshop cáse. It holds that the state of New York cannot limit the hours of employes in bakeries to 10 hours a day without infringing the liberty of the individual to contract for his labor guaranteed by the fourteenth amend

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.”

The fact that economic theories entertained by the judged influence their decisions as to the limits of the police power should not be excluded from the mind while studying the subject. Neither can such decisions be regarded as landmarks permanently defining such limits. Laws, which may be meddlesome interferences with the liberty of the individual in a primitive state, may in a highly organized society become essential to public welfare or even to the continuance of civil liberty itself. The pace at which courts move in sympathy with fast developing economic ideas may be illustrated by Lochner v. New York, the hesitating utterance of divided courts in 1905, followed by Muller v. Oregon, the confident pronouncement of a united bench in 1908. Whatever may be said of Lochner v. New York, it is so distinguished by the later case of Muller v. Oregon that it is no authority for the relator in the case at bar.

Neither does People v. Williams, 189 N. Y. 131 , 81 N. E. 778 , 12 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1130 , 121 Am. St. Rep. 854 , 12 Ann. Cas. 798, sustain the relator’s claim. That case decided only that it was not competent for the Legislature to prohibit a woman from working in a factory before 6 in the morning and after 9 o’clock at night. The act had no relation to the number of hours of labor. To work a half hour or less in a factory before or after the forbidden hours violated the law, even if that were the extent of the whole day’s work. The case is decided largely on the authority of Lochner v. New York; and Muller v. Oregon forbids our drawing therefrom any general rule that labor legislation for women alone is unconstitutional. The remark therein made that women are not wards of the state is unquestionably correct. This wardship depends on presumed (in the case of infants) or proved (in the case of

The authority upon the question seems complete. The power of the Legislature to create a class, consisting of women only, and limit their hours of labor, is established in Muller v. Oregon. That the limitation may be to 54s hours a week is decided by State v. Somerville and Withey v. Bloem; and in these two cases the regulation was held valid as applied to the manufacture of paper boxes, and seals for locking freight cars, occupations apparently as light and innocuous as candy making.

But the relator claims that the exemption of the work in canning factories from the 15th of June to the 15th of October renders the law unconstitutional. A law is a rule of conduct. It must apply alike to all under like conditions. Nor can any state deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. A law therefore cannot make an act criminal as to one person which is innocent in another under like circumstances and conditions. But, as circumstances and conditions differ, classification of those subject to the law may, and often must, be made for the purposes of securing that very uniformity which is essential to law. The precise question in this case is whether the Legislature may, for the purpose of regulating the hours of labor therein, establish a class consisting of factories, as defined by the law of New York, except canning factories. This depends on whether there is a difference in conditions which warrants the classification. Resort

The relator has presented to me a record of evidence taken this year before a committee of the Senate of the state of New York. It is claimed that this record shows that conditions in canning establishments are more injurious to the health of women and children than in many other factories; for instance, than in candy factories. But this is a subject upon which the court cannot take evidence. Classification for the purpose of confining the operation of laws is a legislative function. Every statute presupposes a finding by the Legislature of the facts necessary to bring the act within its powers. In ascertaining these facts the Legislature is not limited to the narrow field of legal evidence. It may draw its information from any source open to mankind. If the courts may review this finding of the Legislature with the aid of such limited means of knowledge as legal evidence affords, an act might be held constitutional in one case and otherwise in another, dependent upon the industry with which the evidence was collected and the skill with which it was presented. In State v. Somerville, supra, evidence was offered that the work was light and harmless, and the court held it irrelevant, saying:

“ Courts, in passing upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of a statute, and deciding whether the Legislature has exceeded its powers to such an extent as to render the act invalid, must look at the terms of the act itself and bring to their assistance such scientific, economic, physical, and other pertinent facts as are common knowledge, and -of which they can take judicial notice.”

“ In all cases pertaining to the police power the Legislature is supreme, unless the general application of the law does violence to the common knowledge of men, in which event a court might properly intervene.”

What matter of common knowledge instructs me that conditions in canning factories require the limitation of the hours of women therein in the same measure as in other factories? They may or may not. I do not know. Neither can I take evidence on the subject. I may read the act and bring to my assistance matters of common knowledge, such as a court may take cognizance of without evidence, and, unless it thereby appears that there is no reasonable basis for the exception, I must trust to the wisdom of the Legislature and uphold the act. The information received by the court in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 419 , 28 Sup. Ct. 324 , 52 L. Ed. 551 , 13 Ann. Cas. 957, such as the statutes of other states and foreign nations, reports of committees, bureaus and commissions, proceedings of medical societies, and matters of that kind, are legitimate means of ascertaining what are matters of common knowledge. Such things I may receive, but not evidence of conditions in certain canning factories such as is offered in this case. If the inquiry now in progress shows that the exception of canning factories is not justified, we may presume that the law will be corrected by the Legislature. But, irrespective of conditions in these factories, it is for the Legislature to determine whether the interest of the public in preserving perishable fruits is more important than the health of female and minor employes. However loath the courts might be to a acquiesce in the wisdom or humanity of such a decision, yet it is a matter ■of legislative, and not judicial cognizance.

I have not thought it necessary to decide the interesting question presented by the district attorney whether an exception introduced into an existing law could have the effect of invalidating the law.

The development of the industrial life of the nation, the pressure of women and children entering the industrial field in competition with men physically better qualified for the struggle, has compelled them to submit to conditions and terms of

The writ is dismissed, and the relator remanded to custody.