Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo

Supreme Court of the United States · 1936 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawDue ProcessFreedom of ContractMinimum WageFourteenth Amendmentdue processfreedom of contractminimum wage

Facts

The relator was held for trial on a charge that, as manager of a laundry, he failed to obey a mandatory order of the New York industrial commissioner prescribing minimum wages for certain adult women employees. He sought habeas corpus, arguing that the New York statute authorizing the commissioner to fix women's wages violated due process and was substantially identical to the District of Columbia minimum wage law invalidated in Adkins v. Children's Hospital. The record did not include the commissioner's order, wage findings, or details of the administrative proceedings, so the Court assumed the statute had been properly administered if the State had constitutional power to regulate at all. The New York Court of Appeals construed the statute to require minimum wages based on both the fair value of services rendered and the minimum cost of living necessary for health.

Issue

Whether New York may, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, require private employers to pay state-prescribed minimum wages to adult women employees under a statute construed to base wages on both value of service and cost of living. More specifically, the question was whether that statute was materially distinguishable from the law invalidated in Adkins.

Rule

The liberty protected by due process includes freedom of employer and employee to contract about wages. Legislative abridgment of that freedom is the exception and cannot extend to state fixing of minimum wages for competent adult women in private employment; a statute requiring wages based in part on workers' living costs is likewise invalid, and adding service value as an additional element does not cure the constitutional defect.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Colorado enacts a statute authorizing a labor commissioner to set binding minimum wages for adult women employed by private retail stores in Denver and Boulder. The statute says the rate must reflect both the fair value of the services rendered and the minimum amount needed to maintain health. A shop owner is prosecuted for paying adult women less than the prescribed rate.

Under the majority's doctrine, which is the strongest argument for the shop owner?

Explanation. The majority treated freedom of contract over wages as part of liberty protected by due process. It read Adkins broadly to mean the state lacks power to impose minimum wages on adult women in private employment. A standard requiring both fair value of service and minimum living costs remains unconstitutional because the living-wage element still controls the constitutional defect, and the added service-value element does not save it.