State v. Muller

• Decision Date: 26 June 1906
• Citation: 48 Or. 252,85 P. 855
• Parties: STATE v. MULLER.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

85 P. 855

48 Or. 252

STATE v. MULLER.

Supreme Court of Oregon

June 26, 1906

Appeal from Circuit Court, Multnomah County; Alfred F. Sears, Jr. Judge.

Curt Muller was convicted of a violation of Laws 1903, p. 148, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Wm. D. Fenton, for appellant.

Bert E Haney, Deputy Dist. Atty., for the State.

BEAN C.J.

In 1903 the Legislature passed an act which, among other things provided that "no female [shall] be employed in any mechanical establishment, or factory, or laundry in this state more than 10 hours during any one day" and that "any employer who shall require any female to work in any of the places mentioned" more than the prohibited time "shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be" punished, etc. Laws Or. 1903, p. 148. The defendant was convicted for a violation of this act by requiring a female to work more than the prescribed time in a laundry. He appeals to this court on the ground that the law is unconstitutional and void, as violative of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," and of sections 1 and 20 of article 1 of the Constitution of this state, as follows: Section 1. "We declare that all men, when they form a social compact, are equal in rights." And section 20. "No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens." The right to labor, or employ labor, on such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon by the interested parties, is not only a liberty, but a property right guarantied to every citizen by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and cannot be arbitrarily interfered with by the Legislature. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 Sup.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937; Ex parte Kuback, 85 Cal. 274, 24 P. 737, 9 L.R.A. 482, 20 Am.St.Rep. 226; Frorer v. People, 141 Ill. 171, 31 N.E. 395, 16 L.R.A. 492; State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 22 S.W. 350, 21 L.R.A. 789; Low v. Rees Printing Co., 41 Neb. 127, 59 N.W. 362, 24 L.R.A. 702, 43 Am.St.Rep. 670; Seattle v. Smyth, 22 Wash. 327, 60 P. 1120, 79 Am.St.Rep. 939. But the amendment was not designed or intended to limit the right of the state, under its police power, to prescribe such reasonable regulations as may be necessary to promote the welfare, peace, morals, education, or good order of the people, and therefore the hours of work in employments which are detrimental to health may be regulated by the Legislature. Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 18 Sup.Ct. 383, 42 L.Ed. 780.

The right to labor and to contract for labor, like all rights, is itself subject to such reasonable limitations as are essential to the peace, health, welfare, and good order of the community, and, as said by the Supreme Court of the United States: "A large discretion is necessarily vested in the Legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests." Lawton v. Steele, 152 U.S. 133, 14 Sup.Ct. 499, 38 L.Ed. 385. In Holden v. Hardy, supra, the court, referring to the limitations placed by a state upon the hours of workmen in underground mines, said: "These employments, when too long pursued, the Legislature has judged to be detrimental to the health of the employes, and, so long as there are reasonable grounds for believing that this is so, its decision upon this subject cannot be reviewed by the federal courts." And in the subsequent case of Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U.S. 183, 20 Sup.Ct. 633, 44 L.Ed. 725, the court uses this language: "regulations respecting the pursuit of a lawful trade or business are of very frequent occurrence in the various cities of the country, and what such regulations shall be and to what particular trade, business, or occupation they shall apply, are questions for the state to determine, and their determination comes within the proper exercise of the police power by the state, and unless the regulations are so utterly unreasonable and extravagant in their nature and purpose that the property and personal rights of the citizen are unnecessarily, and in a manner wholly arbitrary, interfered with or destroyed without due process of law, they do not extend beyond the power of the state to pass, and they form no subject for federal interference." The Legislature may not, therefore, unduly interfere with the liberty of contract, or arbitrarily limit the right of a citizen to enter into such contracts as to him may seem expedient or desirable; but it may prescribe reasonable regulations in reference thereto and limitations thereon to promote the general welfare and guard the public health, and the power of the courts to review such regulations exists only "when that which the Legislature has done comes within the rule that if a statute, purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is beyond all question a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law." Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 31, 25 Sup.Ct. 358, 49 L.Ed. 643.

Now the statute in question was plainly enacted, although not so declared therein, in order to conserve the public health and welfare by protecting the physical well-being of females who work in mechanical establishments, factories, and laundries. Such legislation must be taken as expressing the belief of the Legislature, and through it of the people, that the labor of females in such establishments in excess of 10 hours in any one day is detrimental to health and injuriously affects the public welfare. The only question for the court is whether such a regulation or limitation has any real or substantial relation to the object sought to be accomplished, or whether it is "so utterly unreasonable and extravagant" as to amount to a mere arbitrary interference with the right to contract. On this question we are not without...