People v. Lochner

• Citation: 177 N.Y. 145,69 N.E. 373
• Parties: PEOPLE v. LOCHNER.
• Decision Date: 12 January 1904
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

177 N.Y. 145

69 N.E. 373

PEOPLE

v.LOCHNER.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 12, 1904.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Joseph Lochner was convicted of a misdemeanor, and from a judgment of the Appellate Division (76 N. Y. Supp. 396) affirming the same he appeals. Affirmed.William S. Mackie and Smith M. Lindsley, for appellant.

Timothy Curtin, for the People.

PARKER, C. J.

Defendant's conviction is under subdivision 3, § 3841, Pen. Code, which makes a violation of article 8, c. 415, p. 485, Laws 1897, a misdemeanor. The judgment is affirmed by the Appellate Division.

Defendant urges as ground for a reversal that article 8-which on its face purports to be, as we shall see later, an exercise of the police power of the state-offends against the first section of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. That section provides that ‘no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ It is also claimed that the statute violates those provisions of the state Constitution which declare that ‘no member of this state shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land, or the judgment of his peers' (Const. art. 1, § 1), ‘nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law’ (Const. art. 1, § 6).

The first cases in which the fourteenth amendment is discussed by the United States Supreme Court are the Slaughter House Cases, 83 U. S. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394, wherein is challenged the Louisiana statute authorizing the removal of noxious slaughter houses from the more densely populated part of New Orleans, and their location where they could least affect the health and comfort of the people, and to that end granting a corporation exclusive right for 25 years to maintain slaughter houses within three parishes containing between 200,000 and 300,000 people, and including New Orleans. This is held to be a police regulation for the health and comfort of the people, and therefore within the power of the state Legislature, and not affected by the fourteenth amendment, which the court says is not intended to interfere with the exercise of police power by the states.

In Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 5 Sup. Ct. 357, 28 L. Ed. 923, the Supreme Court has before it a San Francisco ordinance prohibiting work in public laundries within defined territory from 10 p. m. to 6 a. m., claimed to be repugnant to the fourteenth amendment. The court rules that the ordinance is well within the police power, and in the course of the opinion says: ‘Neither the 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 regulationsto promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the state, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity.’ Page 31, 113 U. S., page 359, 5 Sup. Ct.,28 L. Ed. 923.

There are many interesting cases in the United States Supreme Court sustaining statutes of different states which in terms seem repugnant to the fourteenth amendment, but which that court declares to be within the police power of the states. Among them are statutes declaring a railroad company liable for damages to an employé although caused by another employé (Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, 8 Sup. Ct. 1161, 32 L. Ed. 107); fixing the damages at double the value of stock killed when due to the neglect of a railroad company to maintain fences (Minneapolis & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 9 Sup. Ct. 207, 32 L. Ed. 585); requiring locomotive engineers to be licensed, and providing that the railroad company employing them pay the fees of examination (Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96, 9 Sup. Ct. 28, 32 L. Ed. 352); requiring cars to be heated otherwise than by stoves on railroads over 50 miles in length (New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628, 17 Sup. Ct. 418, 41 L. Ed. 853); providing for immediate payment of wages by railroad companies to discharged employés (St. Louis, I. M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Paul, 173 U. S. 404, 19 Sup. Ct. 419, 43 L. Ed. 746); prohibiting options to sell grain (Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425, 22 Sup. Ct. 425, 46 L. Ed. 623); providing for inspection of mines at expense of owners (St. Louis Consol. Coal Co. v. Illinois, 185 U. S. 203, 22 Sup. Ct. 616, 46 L. Ed. 872); and one declaring void all contracts for sales of stocks on margins (Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606, 23 Sup. Ct. 168, 47 L. Ed. 323).

I shall call special attention to but one other case, namely, Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 18 Sup. Ct. 383, 42 L. Ed. 780. In that case the court reviews at length many of the cases arising under the fourteenth amendment, beginning with the Slaughter House Cases. The case involves a Utah statute (Laws 1896, p. 219, c. 72) providing that ‘the period of employment of workingmen in all underground mines or workings shall be eight (8) hours per day, except in cases of emergency where life or property is in imminent danger.’ Violation is made a misdemeanor. The conviction of one Holden under that statute is affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. It is argued by defendant in that case that the statute has no relation to the health or safety of the public or the persons affected, or, if so, only in a very remote degree, while its direct and principal effect is to interfere with the rights and liberties of the contracting parties; that the right to contract contains three essential and indispensable elements, guarantied and protected by the United States Constitution, namely, ‘the right of the employer and employé to agree upon (1) the character of the service to be performed, (2) the amount to be paid for such service, and (3) the number of hours per day during which the service is to continue’; that the destruction or abridgment of one element is a destruction or abridgment of the whole of said right to contract; that the statute abridges the ‘privileges and immunities' in that it deprives the employer and the employé of perfect freedom and liberty to pursue unmolested a lawful vocation in a lawful manner; that the rights of the employer and employé in that direction were unlimited before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and that since its adoption it is beyond the power of any state to make any laws abridging or destroying such rights. This latter contention-which, if sustained, would practically prevent all further development of the police power on the part of the states-is overborne by the court. Many cases passed upon by the court since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment are cited, furnishing illustrations tending to justify the boast of the devotees of the common law that by the application of established legal principles the law has been and will continue to be developed from time to time so as to meet the ever-changing conditions of our widely diversified and rapidly developing business interests. The court quotes from Mr. Justice Matthews in Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 530, 4 Sup. Ct. 111, 118, 28 L. Ed. 232: ‘This flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation is the peculiar boast and excellence of the common law. * * * The Constitution of the United States was ordained, it is true, by descendants of Englishmen, who inherited the traditions of English law and history; but it was made for an undefined and expanding future, and for a people gathered and to be gathered from many nations and of many tongues. * * * There is nothing in Magna Charta, rightly construed as a broad charter of public right and law, which ought to exclude the best ideas of all systems and of every age; and as it was the characteristic principle of the common law to draw its inspiration from every fountain of justice, we are not to assume that the sources of its supply have been exhausted. On the contrary, we shall expect that the new and various experiences of our own situation and system will mold and shape it into new and not less useful forms.’ The court illustrates by forceful examples the necessity of recognizing in legal decisions the change of conditions. After calling attention to the fact that in the early history of the country there was no occasion for any special protection of a particular class, as we were almost purely an agricultural country, it instances coal mining and the manufacture of iron. When these industries began in Pennsylvania as early as 1716, they were carried on in such a limited way, and by such primitive methods, that no special laws were deemed necessary to protect operatives; but since that time they have assumed such vast proportions in that and other states, and developed so many dangers to the safety and life of those engaged in them, that laws to meet such exigencies have become necessary. It calls attention to many protective statutes enacted in many different states providing for fire escapes in hotels, theaters, factories, and other large buildings; inspection of boilers; appliances to obviate the dangers incident to railroad and steamboat transportation; the protection of dangerous machinery against accidental contact; the shoring up of ventilation shafts; means for signaling in mines for fresh air; the elimination, as far as possible, of dangerous gases; and safe means of hoisting and lowering employés in mines. It is said that statutes providing such safeguards ‘have been repeatedly enforced by the courts of the several states, their validity assumed, and, so far as we are informed, they have been uniformly...