Dissent in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
300 U.S. 379 (1937) (1937) · Supreme Court of the United States
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish effectively ended the Lochner era by upholding a state minimum wage law for women and overruling Adkins v. Children's Hospital. The decision marked the beginning of the Court's modern deference to economic regulation and is often called 'the switch in time that saved nine,' as it came during President Roosevelt's court-packing controversy.
What was the dissent in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish?
Justice Sutherland, joined by Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds, and Butler, dissented, maintaining that the minimum wage law unconstitutionally impaired the freedom of contract and that the meaning of the Constitution does not change with the shifting of economic winds.
Source: Read West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish on Google Scholar
Case Overview
Facts
Elsie Parrish was a chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in Wenatchee, Washington. She and her husband sued the West Coast Hotel Company to recover the difference between the wages she was paid and the minimum wage set by Washington state law for women and minors. The hotel argued that the minimum wage law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, relying on the Court's prior decision in Adkins v. Children's Hospital, which had struck down a similar federal minimum wage law.
Majority Holding
The Court upheld the Washington minimum wage law in a 5-4 decision, overruling Adkins v. Children's Hospital. Chief Justice Hughes wrote that the Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract and that the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause is subject to regulation reasonably related to a proper legislative purpose. The exploitation of workers through substandard wages was a legitimate subject of legislative concern.
Majority Reasoning
Chief Justice Hughes's opinion held that the Constitution does not guarantee an absolute freedom of contract. Liberty under the Due Process Clause is subject to reasonable regulation in the public interest. The Court held that the legislature was entitled to adopt measures to reduce the evils of the sweating system, and that minimum wage legislation bore a reasonable relation to the legitimate goal of protecting workers from exploitation. The decision recognized that the unequal bargaining position of workers justified legislative intervention.
The Dissenting Opinion
Justice Sutherland, joined by Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds, and Butler, dissented, maintaining that the minimum wage law unconstitutionally impaired the freedom of contract and that the meaning of the Constitution does not change with the shifting of economic winds.
Key Quotes
“The Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract.”
“What is this freedom? The Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract. It speaks of liberty and prohibits the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.”
“The exploitation of a class of workers who are in an unequal position with respect to bargaining power and are thus relatively defenceless against the denial of a living wage is not only detrimental to their health and well being, but casts a direct burden for their support upon the community.”
Impact and Legacy
West Coast Hotel marked the constitutional revolution of 1937 and the end of the Lochner era's judicial hostility to economic regulation. After this decision, the Court applied rational basis review to economic legislation, and no economic regulation has been struck down on substantive due process grounds since. The case cleared the path for the New Deal regulatory state and reshaped the boundary between judicial and legislative power.
Exam Relevance
West Coast Hotel is tested as the bookend to Lochner, marking the shift from active judicial scrutiny of economic regulation to rational basis review. Professors test whether students understand the doctrinal shift and can articulate why the Court abandoned economic substantive due process while later adopting substantive due process for personal liberties.
Study Tips
- Understand this case as the end of the Lochner era and the beginning of modern rational basis review for economic regulation.
- Know the political context: FDR's court-packing plan and Justice Roberts's 'switch in time.'
- Be able to explain the doctrinal tension between abandoning economic substantive due process and later embracing substantive due process for personal autonomy rights.
- Compare the majority's and dissent's views on whether constitutional meaning changes with economic conditions.
Read the Full Case Analysis
View the complete brief for West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish including full reasoning, doctrine, and study resources.
More Constitutional Law Dissents
United States v. Lopez
514 U.S. 549 (1995) (1995)
Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, dissented, arguing that gun-related violence near schools substantially affects interstate commerce through its impact on education, workforce productivity, and the national economy. The dissent contended that the majority's approach was inconsistent with the Court's post-New Deal Commerce Clause precedents and improperly limited Congress's rational basis for finding a commercial nexus.
United States v. Morrison
529 U.S. 598 (2000) (2000)
Justice Souter, joined by Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, dissented, arguing that the majority's economic/noneconomic distinction was unworkable and that Congress's extensive factual findings of substantial effects on interstate commerce should have been given deference. The dissent contended that the majority was returning to the pre-New Deal era of judicial second-guessing of congressional economic judgments.
Gonzales v. Raich
545 U.S. 1 (2005) (2005)
Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, dissented, arguing that the majority's reasoning effectively returned to a pre-Lopez framework with no meaningful limits on Commerce Clause power. O'Connor contended that if homegrown marijuana for personal medical use is economic activity subject to aggregation, then it is difficult to imagine any activity that Congress cannot regulate.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
567 U.S. 519 (2012) (2012)
The joint dissent of Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito would have struck down the entire ACA, arguing that the individual mandate was neither a valid exercise of the commerce power nor the taxing power, and that it was not severable from the rest of the Act. Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan, concurred in the judgment on the mandate but dissented on the Commerce Clause analysis, arguing the mandate was a valid exercise of the commerce power.
Lochner v. New York
198 U.S. 45 (1905) (1905)
Justice Holmes wrote a famous dissent arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Herbert Spencer's Social Statics and that the Constitution permits states to regulate economic matters as long as a reasonable person could regard the law as a rational response to a perceived problem. Justice Harlan also dissented, arguing the evidence supported the legislature's judgment that bakery work posed genuine health risks.
Griswold v. Connecticut
381 U.S. 479 (1965) (1965)
Justices Black and Stewart dissented separately. Both argued that while the Connecticut law was foolish, there was no general constitutional right to privacy. Justice Black argued that the Court was engaging in the same substantive due process analysis it had properly rejected in repudiating Lochner, substituting its own values for those of the legislature.