The Misunderstood Lochner Case

Statists claim that the Supreme Court ruling in Lochner v. New York (1905) began an era in which courts valued big business more than the common man. But this was a triumph of economic freedom over government intrusion.

In the 1890s, immigrants were pouring into New York, and many of them opened small businesses such as bakeries. Established bakeries had trouble competing with these newcomers, so instead of trying to come up with ideas to expand their customer base, they formed a union that lobbied the state to impose regulations on the new bakeries.

Progressives sided with the unions in calling for more regulations, and they used the press to deliver their message that long working hours in bakeries were unfair and unsafe. This despite a report from the Brooklyn Commissioner of Public Health which concluded that charges of unsafe working conditions in bakeries were “greatly exaggerated and most of (them) absolutely false.”

Nevertheless, politicians insisted on using their police powers to interfere with the natural rights of employers and employees to freely contract. Immigrants were specifically targeted because, as the attorney general said, “There have come to (New York) great numbers of foreigners with habits which must be changed.” The state legislature passed the Bakeshop Act, which prohibited workers from working more than 60 hours in any week or more than 10 hours in any day.

Bavarian immigrant Joseph Lochner owned a bakery in Utica. The Utica Herald stated that because of the “neatness and the excellence of its products it soon won an enviable reputation among local consumers.” But Lochner made the mistake of allowing a homeless employee to live above the shop. The state counted the hours the employee stayed there as working hours and rejected Lochner’s request for an exemption from the law. Lochner was convicted of violating the Bakeshop Act and fined $50.

After several appeals, the case finally reached the Supreme Court. In a 5 to 4 ruling, the Court found that the state law was unconstitutional, and Lochner’s conviction was overturned.

Writing the majority opinion, Justice Rufus Peckham stated that the law was an “unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract… 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.”

Peckham wrote, “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.” This improperly limited freedom that was “necessary for the support” of workers and their families. “The freedom of master and employee to contract with each other in relation to their employment… cannot be prohibited or interfered with, without violating the Federal Constitution.”

The Court also discarded claims that bakery workers were exposed to unsafe working conditions: “To the common understanding, the trade of a baker has never been regarded as an unhealthy one… (there is) possible existence of some small amount of unhealthiness,” but not enough to justify the state exercising its police powers. Bakers “are in no sense wards of the State… (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.”

Progressives and statists condemned the Lochner ruling because it struck down legislation trying to aid the downtrodden masses who supposedly had no ability to think or act for themselves without government intervention. Their notion that the state must regulate their behavior for their own good degraded their humanity and infringed on their natural right to freely contract with whomever they chose.

This was not a case of big business triumphing over the common man. Progressive legislation like the Bakeshop Act actually did more to hurt the common man by limiting the hours and conditions under which small business owners could produce. Progressive politicians naturally denounced the Lochner ruling because it deprived them of the opportunity to wield more control over the people.

Unfortunately, the Lochner Era ended in 1937 when the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s power to regulate economic activities was more important than personal freedom. And individual liberty has been continuously eroded by government intervention ever since.