William Bosley v. John Laughlin No 362 Same v. Same No 363

• Decision Date: 23 February 1915
• Docket Number: Nos. 362 and 363,s. 362 and 363
• Citation: 236 U.S. 385,35 S.Ct. 345,59 L.Ed. 632
• Parties: WILLIAM B. BOSLEY, Peter L. Wheeler, and Samuel H. Buteau, Trustees of 'The Samuel Merritt Hospital,' and Ethel E. Nelson, Appts., v. JOHN P. McLAUGHLIN, Labor Commissioner of the State of California, et al. NO 362. SAME v. SAME. NO 363
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

236 U.S. 385

35 S.Ct. 345

59 L.Ed. 632

WILLIAM B. BOSLEY, Peter L. Wheeler, and Samuel H. Buteau, Trustees of 'The Samuel Merritt Hospital,' and Ethel E. Nelson, Appts.,

v JOHN P. McLAUGHLIN, Labor Commissioner of the State of

California, et al.

NO 362.

SAME

v. SAME.

NO 363.

Nos. 362 and 363.

Argued January 12, 1915.

Decided February 23, 1915.

Messrs. John F. Bowie and Charles S. Wheeler for appellants.

[Argument of Counsel from page 386 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Louis D. Brandeis, William Denman, G. S. Arnold, and Mr. U. S. Webb, Attorney General of California, for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from page 387 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a suit to restrain the enforcement of the statute of California prohibiting the employment of women for more than eight hours in any one day, or more than forty-eight hours in any one week. The act is the same as that which was under consideration in Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373, 59 L. ed. ——, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 342, as amended in 1913. By the amendment, the statute was extended to public lodging houses, apartment houses, hospitals, and places of amusement. The proviso was also amended so as to make the statute inapplicable to 'graduate nurses in hospitals.' Stat. (Cal.) 1913, p. 713.

The complainants are the trustees of 'The Samuel Merritt Hospital' in Alameda, California, and one of their employees, Ethel E. Nelson. Their bill set forth that there were employed in this hospital approximately eighty women and eighteen men; that of these women ten were what are known as 'graduate nurses,' that is to say, those who had 'pursued and completed, at some training school for nurses in a hospital, courses of study and training in the profession or occupation of nursing and attending the sick and injured,' and had received diplomas or certificates of graduation. By reason of their qualifications, they were paid 'a compensation greatly in excess of that paid to female pupils engaged in nursing in hospitals while students of the training school.'

It was further averred that, in addition to these ten graduate nurses, certain other women were employed in the hospital, one as bookkeeper, two as office assistants, one as seamstress, one as matron or housekeeper, five who were engaged in ordinary household duties, and one—the complainant Ethel E. Nelson as pharmacist. It was stated that this complainant was a graduate pharmacist, licensed by the state board; that she also acted as storekeeper, but that her chief duty was to mix and compound drugs for use in the treatment of the hospital patients. The general allegation was made that these last-mentioned eleven employees performed work that was in no manner different from that done by 'persons engaged in similar employments or occupations and not employed in hospitals.' The apprehended injury to the complainant Nelson by reason of the interference of the statute with her freedom to contract was specially alleged.

It was also set forth that the hospital maintained a school with a three years' course of study wherein women were trained to nurse the sick and injured; that in this school there were enrolled twenty-four in the third-year class, eighteen in the second-year class, and twenty-three in the first-year class; that a part of the 'education and training' of these 'student nurses' consisted in 'aiding, nursing, and attending to the wants of the sick and injured persons' in the hospital, this work being done while the student was pursuing the prescribed course of study; that the student nurses were paid $10 a month during each of the first two years of their course and $12.50 a month in the third year, and were also provided throughout the three years 'with free board, lodging, and laundry.' It was averred that the cost to the hospital of maintaining the school was $2,500 a month, and that the cost of procuring the work to be performed by graduate nurses that was being done by the student nurses would be not less than $3,600 a month. It was set forth as a reason why the work of the student nurses was done at less expense, that their compensation was paid not only in money, board, etc., but also partially in their education and training, their attendance on patients being in itself an indispensable part of their course of preparation. It was said further that their hours of labor must be determined by the exigencies of the cases they were attending.

The enforcement of the act with respect to these student nurses, it was stated, would require the hospital either to cease the operation of the school, or largely to increase the number in attendance in order that an equal return in service could be obtained; and such increase would involve a greatly enlarged expense.

The complainants attacked the act on the grounds that it interfered with their liberty of contract, and denied to them the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the 14th Amendment. And in support, it was asserted in substance, that labor in hospitals did not afford, in itself, a basis for classification; that there was no difference between such labor and the 'same kind of labor' performed elsewhere; that a hospital is not an unhealthful or unsanitary place; and, generally, that the statute and its distinctions were arbitary.

Upon the bill, an application was made for an injunction pending the suit. It was heard by three judges and was denied. The appeal in No. 362 is from the order thereupon entered.

The defendants, the officers charged with the enforcement of the law, filed an answer. On final hearing, the complainants made an offer to prove that 'all the allegations of fact set forth in the bill were true; that the fact that a woman was a graduate nurse merely showed that she had completed a course of study for the treatment of the sick, but that the course of study which a woman must take for that purpose was not prescribed by law or fixed by custom, but was such as any hospital or training school might, in the discretion of its governing officers, see fit to prescribe; that the difference between a graduate nurse and an experienced nurse is a difference of technical education only, and that there is no standard by which this difference can be measured; that graduate nurses working in and employed by hospitals do not ordinarily perform therein the work of nursing the sick, but act as overseers to assistants to the medical staff.' The district judge thereupon stated that upon the hearing of the motion for an interlocutory injunction it had been held that the complaint did not state a cause of action, and that it was considered unnecessary to take the evidence. The offer of proof was rejected and the bill of complaint dismissed. No. 363 is an appeal from the final decree.

1. As to liberty of contract.—The gravamen of the bill is with respect to the complainant Nelson, a graduate...