Quong Wing v. Thomas Kirkendall
| Decision Date | 22 January 1912 |
| Docket Number | No. 119,119 |
| Citation | 32 S.Ct. 192,223 U.S. 59,56 L.Ed. 350 |
| Parties | QUONG WING, Plff. in Err., v. THOMAS B. KIRKENDALL, as Treasurer of the County of Lewis and Clark, State of Montana |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Charles E. Pew, Ira T. Wight, and M. S. Gunn for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 60 intentionally omitted] Messrs. W. H. Poorman and Albert J. Galen for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 61 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
This is an action to recover $10 paid under duress and protest for a license to do hand laundry work. The plaintiff got judgment in the court of first instance, but this judgment was reversed by the supreme court of the state. 39 Mont. 64, 101 Pac. 250. The law under which the fee was exacted imposed the payment upon all persons engaged in laundry business other than the steam laundry business, with a proviso that it should not apply to women so engaged, where not more than two women were employed. Rev. Codes, § 2776. The only question is whether this is an unconstitutional discrimination, depriving the plaintiff of the equal protection of the laws. U. S. Const. 14th Amend.
The case was argued upon the discrimination between the instrumentalities employed in the same business and that between men and women. One like the former was held bad in Re Yot Sang, 75 Fed. 983, and while the latter was spoken of by the supreme court of the state as an exemption of one or two women, it is to be observed that in 1900 the census showed more women than men engaged in hand laundry work in that state. Nevertheless we agree with the supreme court of the state so far as these grounds are concerned. A state does not deny the equal protection of the laws merely by adjusting its revenue laws and taxing system in such a way as to favor certain industries or forms of industry. Like the United States, although with more restriction and in less degree, a state may carry out a policy, even a policy with which we might disagree. McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539, 547, 53 L. ed. 315, 319, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 206; Armour Packing Co. v. Lacy, 200 U. S. 226, 235, 50 L. ed. 451, 456, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 232; Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. 184 U. S. 540, 562, 46 L. ed. 679, 690, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 431. It may make discriminations, if founded on distinctions that we cannot pronounce unreasonable and purely arbitrary, as was illustrated in American Sugar Ref Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89, 92, 95, 45 L. ed. 102, 103, 105, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 43; Williams v. Fears, 179 U. S. 270, 276, 45 L. ed. 186, 189, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 128; W. W. Cargill Co. v. Minnesota, 180 U. S. 452, 469, 45 L. ed. 619, 627, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 423. It may favor or discourage the liquor traffic or trusts. The criminal law is a whole body of policy on which states may and do differ. If the state sees fit to encourage steam laundries and discourage hand laundries, that is its own affair. And if, again, it finds a ground of distinction in sex, that is not without precedent. It has been recognized with regard to hours of work. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, 52 L. ed. 551, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 324, 13 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 957. It is recognized in the respective rights of husband and wife in land during life, in the inheritance after the death of the spouse. Often it is expressed in the time fixed for coming of age. If Montana deems it advisable to put a lighter burden upon women than upon men with regard to an employment that our people commonly regard as more appropriate for the former, the 14th Amendment does not interfere by creating a fictitious equality where there is a real difference. The particular points at which that difference shall be emphasized by legislation are largely in the power of the state.
Another difficulty suggested by the statute is that it is impossible not to ask whether it is not aimed at the Chinese, which would be a discrimination that the Constitution does not allow. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 30 L. ed. 220, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1064. It is a...
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